The Independent View: Voter Fraud in Ohio

I watched the Senate hearings on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the Section 4 Preclearance formula change. There was references to how small the voter fraud cases were. But voter fraud does happen.

As a Hamilton County (Cincinnati, Ohio) poll worker, Melowese Richardson helped people exercise a precious right, the opportunity to vote.

Today, because she voted illegally in the name of others, including one who was in a coma, she was sentenced five years in prison.

Three of her four convictions involved voting for a relative who has been in a coma since 2003. Richardson was a poll worker since 1998 but that ended when she was indicted.

Fellow election workers recognized her handwriting on ballots from the same address, information that helped lead to her convictions. Richardson, 58, of Madisonville, admitted she voted illegally in 2008, 2011 and 2012 elections:

• In the November 2012 election, Richardson admitted she voted twice, using a normal and absentee ballots. Because she had access as a poll worker to the voter registration book, she noticed her absentee ballot request hadn’t been updated as of election day. She signed the registration book and voted a normal ballot knowing she’d submitted an absentee ballot a week earlier

• In 2008, 2011 and 2012, Richardson admitted forging the name of and illegally voting for her sister, Montez Richardson, who has been in a coma since 2003.

She became the third person convicted this year of illegal voting in Hamilton County.

The other two – Sister Marguerite Kloos, 55, of Delhi Township, and Russell Glossop, 76, of Symmes Township, were given diversion. That means if they follow the judges’ orders and do nothing wrong in the next year or so, they likely will have their cases expunged and will be allowed to vote again.

The difference between them and Richardson is they voted for a deceased roommate, in the nun’s case, and a deceased spouse while Richardson was convicted of illegal voting in three different elections and essentially said early in the investigation she had and asked what authorities were going to do about it.

Three others also have pending charges of illegal voting in Hamilton County.