Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

GOP County Elections Commissioner To Plead Guilty To Voter Fraud–And Everyone Had The Same Response

Facebook screenshot of Jason Schofield
Jason Schofield/Facebook

Rensselaer County's Republican elections commissioner, Jason T. Schofield, was arrested in September by the FBI for fraudulently obtaining and filing absentee ballots.

Jason T. Schofield, a Republican elections commissioner in Rensselaer County, New York will plead guilty to fraudulently obtaining and filing absentee ballots.

Schofield's attorney, Danielle Neroni, confirmed her client will plead guilty on January 11, 2023 and that he "will be resigning from his position."


His plea would mark the second conviction in a probe spearheaded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the harvesting of absentee ballots in elections over the past two years.

Schofield was arraigned in September on an indictment charging him with unlawfully using the names and dates of birth of voters to fraudulently apply for absentee ballots for elections in 2021.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said he "unlawfully possessed and used the names and dates of birth of voters in connection with absentee ballot applications he submitted to a New York State Board of Elections web site."

The agency said Schofield "took possession of the absentee ballots issued to these voters," brought them to voters, and had these voters sign absentee ballot envelopes but not actually vote, which enabled him or others to cast votes in these voters' names.

A source close to the case told reporters that as part of his guilty plea, Schofield will cooperate with federal investigators who are examining the misuse of county resources and employees to gather absentee ballots.

The FBI's investigation of voter fraud "is running parallel to a similar investigation by the state attorney general's office," according to The Times Union, which noted that state prosecutors recently served a grand jury subpoena on Rensselaer County to access "a trove of absentee ballot documents" that were handled in 2021 by the county's operations director and director of purchasing respectively.

False allegations of voter fraud have become a favorite conservative talking point over the last few years, particularly after former Republican President Donald Trump spent much of his term casting doubt on the integrity of the 2020 general election and since then has repeatedly and falsely declared it was stolen.

But even though many of Trump's supporters have embraced these allegations—despite the lack of any credible evidence—no evidence of widespread voter fraud has ever been uncovered and voter fraud itself, electoral experts and political scientists say, is actually quite rare.

The news of Schofield's guilty plea soon went viral and prompted many to make the same joke—that it's in fact Republicans who are guilty of the crime they've accused others of committing.



Schofield is of course only the latest Republican to face charges related to voter fraud.

For instance, over the summer, Barry Morphew, a Colorado man who was previously charged with the murder of his still-missing wife, pleaded guilty to casting a presidential ballot under her name for Trump in the 2020 election. Morphrew admitted he did so because he assumed Democrats were "cheating."

There is no evidence that the 2020 general election was stolen and Trump's statements often ran counter to the findings of federal agencies.

In fact, a statement from the Trump administration's own Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of a joint statement from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees, affirmed the agencies found "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

More from People/donald-trump

Nathan Lane
Phillip Faraone/WireImage

Nathan Lane Reveals Frustrating Reason 'Space Jam' Director Rejected Him For Role

Actor Nathan Lane, on publicity tour for a new TV series, discussed old films and old chances in an interview with Vanity Fair recently.

The actor—a Tony, Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, and Laurence Olivier award winner—talked about how all the awards in the world did not land him a role in the iconic movie Space Jam back in 1997.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pete Hegseth
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Viral Post Explains Why It's So Alarming That GOP Is Using Signal App For Top Secret Chats

Amid revelations that Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was invited into a Signal chat with high-level Trump administration officials, particularly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussing military strategy surrounding their war strikes in Yemen, Threads user jeanie.online went viral after stressing why Trump administration officials are really using the app to discuss secret matters.

It's worth noting that Signal messages can be set and managed to disappear, as the team behind the app acknowledges on the Signal website:

Keep ReadingShow less
Brian Kilmeade
Fox News

Fox News Host Sparks Outrage With Disturbing Stance On Immigrant Deportations

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade enraged social media users after he said that undocumented immigrants "don't deserve" due process before getting deported.

On Monday's broadcast of the right-wing cable news channel Fox & Friends, Kilmeade stated that he didn't think it was "practical to do due process on 8 million people."

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump; Janet Mills
Win McNamee/Getty Images (left and right)

Trump Dragged After Demanding 'Full-Throated Apology' From Maine's Governor

President Donald Trump was called out after reviving his feud with Maine Governor Janet Mills, demanding a "full-throated apology" after she pushed back last month against his executive order banning transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.

Last month, while discussing the order he'd signed on the issue, Trump threatened Mills after she said she would only comply with "state and federal laws," saying he'd deny federal funding for her state:

Keep ReadingShow less
Married couple in a mountainous field
Foto Pettine/Unsplash

The Biggest Red Flags People Have Ever Seen At A Wedding

Tying the knot with the person you see yourself spending the rest of your life with is one of life's greatest moments.

However, those who have an outside perspective of your relationship may see signs that your matrimonial bliss could be more of a miss.

Keep ReadingShow less