Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Stanton, has asked Attorney General Matt Denn to investigate possible voter fraud in last Tuesday’s referendum to raise property taxes in the Red Clay School District. Peterson said in a news release that she had received a report that a group of parents who had just voted at one polling place said they were going to vote again at a second polling place. The unofficial vote total released Tuesday was 6,395 for a tax increase, 5,515 against. Unlike general elections, voters are not assigned a specific polling place for school referendums so there’s no way for poll workers to know if someone voted multiple times, the release said.
“In an election where nearly 12,000 people voted and 880 votes decided the outcome, it would only take 441 duplicate votes to change the results of the election,” Peterson said in the release. “Before Red Clay raises property taxes, I want to be assured that the election was not affected by fraudulent voting.”
The Department of Elections requires each voter to sign an affidavit when they vote, and has 15 days to identify if any votes were duplicated before the vote tally is certified and becomes official.
“We are unaware of any irregularities,” said Red Clay spokeswoman Pati Nash. “Certainly we did not encourage anyone to vote more than one time and we expect the results to be certified.”
Full Article: Voter fraud alleged in Red Clay.