Franklin Pierce
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Fraud: Michigan Democratic Official Charged With Altering Ballots in 2018 Election
Whenever I write about voter fraud, I feel obliged to inject some nuance and caveats, which typically boil down to this: The Right tends to exaggerate the prevalence of the problem, while the Left tends to dismiss and downplay it entirely. The truth is that while there is no evidence of widespread and systemic abuses, fraud does occur, and common-sense steps to ensure the integrity of the ballot and electoral process should not be reflexively assailed as racist or forms of (heavily debunked) "suppression." Indeed, measures like voter ID requirements are broadly popular among the electorate, despite frequent demonization.
Sherikia Hawkins was charged Monday with six felony counts for allegedly altering absentee ballots during the November 2018 election in her capacity as city clerk for the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Mich. Hawkins, a 38-year-old registered Democrat, stands accused of altering 193 absentee ballots. She was arraigned Monday in Southfield on charges including falsifying returns or records, forgery of a public record, misconduct in office, and multiple counts of using a computer to commit a crime. She was released on $15,000 bond...The alleged misconduct was discovered after the Oakland County Clerk’s Office noticed that 193 voter files had been changed to reflect that the voters failed to include a valid signature or return date, when all of the implicated voters had in fact included both items. The county clerk’s office later discovered the original voter files in the trash at the election-division office. The Michigan State Police then launched an investigation that resulted in Hawkins’s arrest.
