Two New Jersey councilmen along with two men tied to a councilmen’s campaign have been charged with voting fraud related to a May 12 municipal election in the city of Patterson.
Paterson City Councilman Michael Jackson, Councilman-Elect Alex Mendez, Shelim Khalique and Abu Razyen have been charged election fraud, mail-in voting fraud, and illegal possession of mail-in ballots.
Paterson, New Jersey, City Councilman Michael Jackson, Council-Elect Alex Mendez, and two other men have been charged with voter fraud, according to NJ.com. This comes after the Passaic County Board of Elections had opted not to count 800 ballots across several different municipalities.
Jackson, 48, and Mendez, 45, were charged with fraud related to casting mail-in votes, unauthorized possession of ballots, tampering with public records, and falsifying public records. Mendez was also charged with election fraud.
Two others from Passaic County were also charged.
Authorities began investigating after reports surfaced that hundreds of mail-in ballots were found in a Paterson mailbox and another one in Haledon.
“Today’s charges send a clear message: If you try to tamper with an election in New Jersey, we will find you, and we will hold you accountable,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement Thursday. “We will not allow a small number of criminals to undermine the public’s confidence in our democratic process.”
Mendez and Jackson are both accused of approaching voters in the district and taking their mail-in ballots for delivery without being authorized as the bearer, and in Mendez’s case, he also allegedly acquired and submitted at least one voter registration application for someone who knew to be ineligible to vote.
Source: Washington Examiner
When was this election held? I’m sure that a few out of millions of voters shouldn’t change the percentage, especially if both parties are doing it. You know and I know that as of lately there are more crooked Republicans than Democrats just look at their posts and see who the liars are.
Why are the all Arabic or Islamic? Doesn’t anyone care about here district’s future? These kind of people are setting out to destroy the inner fabric of our government!
There are examples of all kinds of voter fraud from people from both parties. There is not a perfect system. but the answer is not to disenfranchise people.