A Minnesota woman has been charged with three felony charges of voter fraud after filling out an absentee ballot for Donald Trump in her deceased mother’s name.
Danielle Miller has reportedly admitted submitting the ballot in Nashwauk, a rural town in Itasca County, to fulfill her late mother’s wish to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
According to a criminal complaint Miller, 50, admitted this to authorities after the Itasca County auditor received and flagged the ballots as suspicious. One envelope contained the signature of Rose Marie Javorina, Miller’s mother who passed away in August.
Officers in the Itasca County Sherriff’s Office also found that Javorina “signed” the witness section on Miller’s ballot while Miller was listed as a witness for Javorina, The Star Tribune reports. Both signatures were written in the same ink, the complaint added.
Miller said her mother was an “avid” Trump supporter but was unable to vote for the former president in time because she died on August 31 – before absentee ballots were mailed. Neither ballot will be counted and are in evidence.
Miller is facing two counts of intentionally signing false certificates and one count of casting an illegal vote. It is unclear if she will still be allowed to recast her vote before Election Day.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a news conference on Tuesday he was “thrilled” to hear about the case because it indicates that the state’s routine ballot checks work.
“It’s an example where the system worked exactly as it was supposed to work. It was intercepted, it was detected, it was caught, and that person’s second vote, that illegal vote, was not counted," Simon said.
"That person is now subject to legal consequences. And that’s exactly what Minnesotans should expect, and that’s exactly what the law is supposed to produce that kind of outcome."
Voter fraud of this sort is extremely rare – despite Trump and his allies asserting it is common and easy to do.
Typically this kind of blatant voter fraud is caught before ballot counting begins. Each state has substantial checks in place to prevent fraud.
In the 2020 presidential election, the Associated Press found fewer than 475 voter fraud cases across the six battleground states. Those ballots were not counted and were also not made for one specific candidate.
Austin Rohling, Istaca County’s auditor told The Star Tribune approximately 30,000 ballots will come through this year and this is the first time he’s seen something that resulted in felony charges.
Miller is expected to appear in court, via Zoom, on December 4.
