In discussing the applicable law, the court referenced another fraud case in which votes were disqualified because the voters were nonresidents and others had been made illegal offers by city officials if they voted in favor of a city consolidation. But the election ended up being overturned by the California Supreme Court because the “widespread illegal voting practices that permeated this election—including fraud and tampering” with absentee ballots and other “illegal votes affected the outcomes of the consolidated elections.”

2. Mayoral Election, Miami, Florida—November 4, 1997

In the Miami mayoral election held on November 4, 1997, incumbent Joe Carollo won a plurality in a field of five candidates, but was 155 votes short of winning a majority. Carollo won a majority of the in-person precinct votes, but his challenger, Xavier Suarez, won a majority of the absentee ballots; Carollo “would have won outright on Nov. 4” if not for “Suarez’s lopsided advantage in absentees.”

Carollo then lost the run-off election on November 13 when Suarez received two-thirds of the absentee votes cast in the election. However, the November 4 election was overturned, and Carollo was returned to office, after a court found evidence of widespread, massive fraud involving 5,000 absentee ballots. Although this case concentrated on absentee ballots, the Miami Herald’s investigation found that dozens of “ineligible voters came and voted at the poll,” too.

One poignant story uncovered by the Miami Herald demonstrates how elderly and disabled voters can easily be manipulated and pressured in their homes, hospitals, or nursing homes where there are no election officers or poll watchers to supervise or observe the voting process. “I was taken advantage of” Ada Perez told the investigative reporters. A campaign operative tracked down Perez, 70, at the hospital where she was recovering from a severe stroke. She described how the operative “badgered her to vote for Suarez, then finally took her ballot and punched it for her.” Her “eyes welling with tears,” Perez said her “vote was stolen…. They know our eyesight is not good and we are not well. What kind of person would take advantage of the elderly?”

3. Democratic Mayoral Primary Election, East Chicago, Indiana—May 6, 2003

The absentee-ballot fraud that occurred in the 2003 mayoral primary in East Chicago, Indiana, was so pervasive that the U.S. Supreme Court cited it as an example of proven fraud when it upheld Indiana’s new voter ID law in 2008. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court noted that “Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor—though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud—demonstrate [sic] that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.”

That is certainly what happened in East Chicago, and it is why the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the results of the election.

George Pabey was challenging the incumbent mayor, Robert Pastrick. Of the 8,227 votes cast on Election Day, Pabey received 199 more votes than the incumbent mayor. But of the 1,950 absentee ballots cast, the mayor had 477 more votes than Pabey, giving the incumbent a victory with a margin of 278 votes.

However, the trial judge concluded after a week-and-a-half trial, and hearing from 165 witnesses, that the mayor and his cronies had “perverted the absentee voting process and compromised the integrity and results of that election.” The judge found “direct, competent, and convincing evidence that established the pervasive fraud, illegal conduct, and violations of elections law” that proved the “voluminous, widespread and insidious nature of the misconduct.”

The fraud “compromised the integrity and results of that election.”

4. Congressional Election, Ninth District, North Carolina—November 6, 2018

The only challenged congressional race in the 2018 federal election was in the Ninth Congressional District in North Carolina, a district that spans “eight counties along the State’s central southern border.”62

The incumbent, Representative Robert Pittenger (R), had been defeated in the Republican primary by Mark Harris. Harris faced his Democratic opponent, Dan McCready, in the November 6 general election.

After the votes were tallied at the end of Election Day, Harris had apparently defeated McCready by 905 votes, a margin of only 0.3 percent of all the ballots cast in the election.

The number of votes received by each candidate was as follows: Harris (139,246); McCready (138,341); and Jeff Scott (5,130)  The “number of returned absentee ballots [10,500] far exceeded the margin between Harris and McCready.”

However, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (“the Board”) refused to certify the results of the election when evidence surfaced of “concerted fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail ballots,” including illegal vote harvesting by a political consultant and his associates. In North Carolina, only the voter and “a voter’s near relative or the voter’s verifiable legal guardian” is allowed to return a completed absentee ballot to election officials.

After an intensive investigation that included 142 voter interviews and “30 subject and witness interviews,” as well as public hearings, the Board overturned the results of both the congressional race and two local contests, ordering a new election. The Board concluded that the election “was corrupted by fraud, improprieties, and irregularities so pervasive that its results are tainted as the fruit of an operation manifestly unfair to the voters and corrosive to our system of representative government.”