National Park

Albany Times Union, 12/29/22

Election chief to plead guilty
Schofield also scheduled to resign from county position

By Brendan J. Lyons


TROY — Jason T. Schofield, Rensselaer County’s Republican elections commissioner, is scheduled to plead guilty to federal criminal charges in January in connection with an ongoing investigation of voter fraud by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“He is scheduled for a change of plea and with his change of plea he will be resigning from his position,” Danielle Neroni, Schofield’s attorney, said Wednesday.

Schofield’s scheduled guilty plea to felony charges on Jan. 11 would mark the second conviction in the federal investigation that’s being spearheaded by the FBI and has focused on the harvesting of absentee ballots in elections over the past two years. A source close to the case said Schofield’s plea agreement includes a pledge to cooperate in the wide-ranging investigation that has also examined the use of county resources and employees to gather absentee ballots.

The court docket in Schofield’s federal criminal case indicates that the notice of his change-of-plea hearing was filed on Dec. 13. Later that day, the Rensselaer County Legislature voted 16-2 to appoint Schofield to a second, four-year term as elections commissioner along with Democrat Mary Sweeney, who is succeeding retiring Commissioner Ed McDonough. It’s unclear whether GOP legislators who supported Schofield’s re-appointment — at a time when he was facing federal criminal charges — were aware that he had agreed earlier that day to plead guilty to the charges and step down.

Schofield’s second four-year term in the job, which pays an annual salary of $89,041, is scheduled to begin Jan. 1.

The FBI’s ongoing investigation of voter fraud is running parallel to a similar investigation by the state attorney general’s office. State prosecutors recently served a grand jury subpoena on Rensselaer County seeking a trove of absentee ballot documents that were handled last year by county Operations Director Richard W. Crist and also Jim Gordon, the county’s director of purchasing.

It’s unclear whether Schofield’s cooperation deal will be made public in his plea agreement when it’s filed next month. Schofield was arrested in September outside his residence by the FBI on charges detailed in a nine-page indictment accusing him of fraudulently obtaining and filing absentee ballots using the personal information of at least eight voters without their permission.

Schofield was appointed as commissioner in April 2018 — the same month he resigned from the Troy City School District Board of Education, where he had been a board member for 15 years, including serving seven years as president. In the past month he has been in the Board of Elections office sparingly and has been using accrued time, according to a person familiar with the office.

The subpoena issued by the state attorney general’s office also sought absentee documents that may have been handled by Leslie A. Wallace and Sara J. McDermott, who both work for Rensselaer County. McDermott has been described by county political insiders as a GOP operative.

Wallace was listed in payroll records two years ago as an “assistant for constituent relations” in the office of county Executive Steve McLaughlin, who was indicted last year on unrelated felony charges for allegedly misusing campaign funds and falsifying campaign finance filings. McLaughlin has pleaded not guilty; his criminal case is being handled by the state attorney general's office.

McDermott, a confidential assistant in the human resources office, has been active in local politics and government. Last year, she ran for county executive on the Working Families Party line after defeating McLaughlin’s Democratic challenger, Gwen Wright, in a primary for the third-party line. McDermott did not actively campaign for county executive but her primary win may have siphoned votes away from Wright, whose name only appeared on the Democratic line.

McLaughlin ran on the Republican and Conservative lines, winning reelection to his second term with about 63 percent of the vote. McLaughlin, a former state assemblyman, has not been a focus in the state and federal voter fraud investigations.

Political observers contend McDermott’s candidacy in the county executive’s race was intended to prevent Wright from securing the third-party ballot line.

The federal grand jury probe being handled by the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office led to the guilty plea of a former Troy city councilwoman, Kimberly Ashe-Mc-Pherson, a 61-year-old Republican who had been a councilwoman in North Troy for more than seven years. She pleaded guilty in June to fraudulently submitting absentee ballots in last year’s primary and general elections as she sought re-election to the City Council. She subsequently resigned from public office.

Crist, a longtime influential figure in Rensselaer County politics, and Gordon, a former Troy mayoral candidate who was elected to the North Greenbush Town Board last year, both became a focus in the Justice Department’s investigation in February when FBI agents seized their mobile phones, days after a federal grand jury subpoena was served on the county seeking voter records.

gorgehiker Loc: Lexington, Ky

Don't expect this thread to go far. You'll hear nothing from Rac, Arch, or any of the other Wingers who are trying to take over the attic.

jcboy3

From my very limited recollection, it's usually Republicans involved in voter fraud. And it's definitely whiny loser Republcans that claim voter fraud whenever they lose. It's all about the demographics.

JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois

You are wrong. I am on the Right and I condemn any voter fraud regardless of who is involved.

FrumCA

And then there's this....

Ex-Democratic congressman sentenced to prison in yearslong Pennsylvania election fraud scheme
By Sonia Moghe and Paul LeBlanc, CNN
Published 6:39 PM EDT, Tue September 27, 2022

Expelled former Democratic congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for federal election fraud dating back to 2014, the Justice Department said Tuesday, and was immediately taken into custody.

Myers, 79, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstruction of justice, falsification of voting records, and conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election as part of scams to stuff ballot boxes for certain Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania elections between 2014 and 2018, the DOJ said in a news release.

Prosecutors said some of the candidates were running to be judges and had hired Myers, who would use portions of “consulting fees” from his clients to pay others to interfere with election results.

Myers, who had been expelled from Congress in 1980 and served time in prison after taking bribes from an undercover FBI agent as part of the ABSCAM investigation, was also sentenced Tuesday to three years of supervision upon release and ordered to pay $100,000 in fines, the press release said.

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Myers for comment.

“Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. If even one vote has been illegally cast or if the integrity of just one election official is compromised, it diminishes faith in process,” US Attorney Jacqueline Romero said in a statement.

“This defendant used his position, knowledge of the process, and connections to fix elections for his preferred candidates, which demonstrates a truly flagrant disregard for the laws which govern our elections. He will now spend 30 months in prison as penalty for his crimes.”

That message was echoed by Jacqueline Maguire, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia division. “Protecting the legitimacy of elections is critical to ensuring the public’s trust in the process,” she said.

“Through his actions, Ozzie Myers pointedly disdained both the will of Philadelphia voters and the rule of law. He’s now a federal felon twice over, heading back behind bars, with time to consider the great consequence of free and fair elections,” Maguire added.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/politics/michael-ozzie-myers-election-fraud-prison-sentenced/index.html

National Park

I agree with JReipe above: voting fraud is wrong regardless of who commits it, and those who are convicted should be punished. Good riddance to Ozzie Meyers. As part of the ABSCAM scandal, Myers was expelled from the House of Representatives in 1980 by a vote of 376 to 30. Obviously, both Democrats and Republicans voted to expel him. Myers was then convicted of bribery and conspiracy and sentenced to three years in prison in 1981. Apparently he did not learn his lesson from this prior conviction...

In addition to being opposed to voter fraud, I also am opposed to people who claim they lost an election because of voter fraud when in fact none exists. If you are going to claim voter fraud, you must have real facts to back up your claim, not baseless speculation or crazy conspiracy theories that appear designed primarily to persuade your supporters that they should doubt the integrity of the election.

FrumCA

Agree.

srg

George, I like those guys. They provide a wonderful dose of humor and make believe almost every day. I always look forward to reading them.

FrumCA

Yes. And be sure to continue to single out republicans when you find them on the wrong side of the law.

scooter1 Loc: Yacolt, Wa.

You spent a lot of time pointing out 1 gop getting hit for voter fraud. Since the last election many people have been convicted of voter fraud. It has both parties doing it.

National Park

I have no sympathy for anyone convicted of voter fraud. I merely reproduced an article in a paper for people to see. And I think that the response (or lack of response) showed that many of those active on this forum who without hard evidence consistently accuse Democrats of massive voter fraud had nothing to say about an actual voter fraud conviction by a member of their own party.

Regarding the number of people committing voter fraud, numerous studies have concluded that the number is extremely small—not nearly enough to change the result of any significant election. New legislation which is purported to be necessary to prevent fraud is therefore a solution in search of a problem.

FrumCA

Fraud is conducted both the left and right and several conservatives have pointed out the hypocrisy of your one-sided post on this subject. You would be hard pressed to ignore conservative agreement that voter fraud conducted by anyone is not acceptable.

National Park

Perhaps you haven't read all of my posts on this thread because you apparently believe that I am concerned only about voter fraud that is conducted by Republicans, perhaps because I posted a current newspaper article about a Republican who is about to plead guilty to voter fraud. The fact is that I am opposed to voter fraud by anyone, whether Republican or Democrat, and hope that anyone who is guilty of it is tried, convicted and appropriately sentenced.

I also have noted that numerous studies have shown that voter fraud is extremely rare, and I have seen no factual evidence that it has changed the outcome of any significant contemporary election. For instance, the Heritage Foundation, an advocate for new laws to prevent voter fraud, lists a total of only 22 cases of voter fraud in New York State between 1983 and the present (about one every two years), only 54 convictions in California between 2004 and the present (slightly more than two per year), and only 52 convictions in Florida between 1992 and the present (less than two per year). (There are far more gun deaths in each of these states every year than there are voting fraud convictions.)

In addition to being opposed to voter fraud, I have stated that I am opposed to accusations of voter fraud that have no factual basis and serve to undermine the integrity of fair elections.

Do you disagree with any of this?

Triple G

No. It's a good summation.

States/local government should meticulously update their voter records every January and again 3 months before any election.

Registrations should be equally administered and monitored. The actual voting process whether by mail, website, or in person works so much better when those two things include scrubbed clean data.

scooter1 Loc: Yacolt, Wa.

Got to disagree with the last sentence. Any voter fraud is unacceptable. I agree with the rest though. Voter fraud is not party oriented.