HAMILTON COUNTY, OH (FOX19) -
The Hamilton County Board of
Elections has reviewed more than 80 cases of potential voter fraud and shared
information on six of those cases with the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office.
Two of those cases are
already being investigated by the county prosecutor including an investigation
into a nun and a poll worker.
So far no charges have been filed.
Hamilton County Republican
Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou wanted to see all of the cases reported to the
prosecutor's office leaving the decision whether to investigate further up to
that legal team.
Board Member Caleb Faux,
however, felt that would send the wrong message.
"If we refer this entire list
to the prosecutor's office as a report we leave open the interpretation,
potential understanding on the part of the public, that we think there possibly
are as many as 80 cases of voter fraud and I know for a fact that none of us
one this board believe that," Faux argued.
Only three people subpoenaed
showed up to Friday's hearing and none of them were the voters in question.
"That has as much to do with
the process of how people are subpoenaed," board member Tim Burke argued.
Burke says they are
investigating which subpoenas were delivered directly and which may not have
reached the proper address or were delivered to someone other than the person
in question.
"I've been around criminal
courts a long time and people ought to honor subpoenas and it's very
disappointing to me that they don't," Triantafilou said.
One voter who was supposed to
show got a lawyer before the hearing. The woman was a poll worker in November's
election and the only voter the board knows of who had two votes count in
Hamilton County.
"We all took what she did
very, very seriously because she really did undermine the confidence of all of
us in the voting process," Burke said.
Burke, who also serves as the
Chair of the Hamilton County Democratic party, says the woman took advantage of
her position as a poll worker.
"On top of that it appears
she voted for a number of other voters as well. Perhaps as many as five or
six," he said.
That case is now being
handled by the prosecutor's office along with the investigation into a nun who
allegedly cast the ballot of a fellow Sister of Charity who passed away in
October.
"If you look at that one,
that's pretty good work here by our team … to constantly look at this list we
get of deceased voters and compare them," Triantafilou said.
"Our staff did an excellent
job in counting valid votes and in not counting invalid votes," echoed Burke.
"After all of this there's absolutely no indication that there was an organized
effort by anyone to mess up these election results."
The Hamilton County Board of Elections has asked the prosecutor's
office for an opinion on whether it is legal to vote by absentee as well as
provisional ballot. Depending on that finding they will decide how to proceed
on a few dozen other cases.
In the meantime, the prosecutor's office will continue its own
investigation into the cases of potential voter fraud.
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