Within the case of the discarded Pennsylvania poll paper – CBS Pittsburgh – there isn’t any cost
HARRISBURG, PA (AP) – No criminal charges are being filed against a former election worker. A federal prosecutor said on Friday that the federal authorities wrongly rejected nine military votes before the presidential elections in November.
Earlier, officials had blamed the decision to throw away the ballot papers on an unidentified and improperly trained contract worker who had spent two days processing postal ballot papers for the county. The ballot papers were later taken from the trash and counted with other posted ballot papers after the November 3rd elections.
“After a thorough investigation by the FBI and prosecutors in my office, we determined that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the criminal intent of the person who dropped the ballot,” said acting US attorney Bruce Brandler, a professional attorney in a press release.
“Therefore, no criminal complaints are being filed and the matter is closed,” he said.
President Donald Trump repeatedly raised the nine ballots when making unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud, including two mentions during the first presidential debate. Brandler’s predecessor Dave Freed, a Trump candidate who recently resigned before the administration change, said seven of the ballots for Trump were cast. The other two had been resealed.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who oversees the Pennsylvania vote, previously described the discarded ballots as “bad mistakes,” but not as willful fraud. After the incident in September, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs trained election workers in the Lucerne district.
The unidentified worker was fired.
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