Donald Trump has been all over the place complaining for weeks now that the presidential election is “rigged” and that there is “large scale voter fraud” happening across the country. But ironically, it was one of his own supporters who was arrested for voter fraud recently.
Terri Lynn Rote, a registered Republican, was arrested Thursday in Polk County, Iowa, on first-degree election misconduct charge after attempting to vote twice in the general election, according to Polk County Jail records.
The charges are a Class D felony in the swing-state, where early voting began Sept. 29. A police report obtained by The Des Moines Register says Rote allegedly cast an early voting ballot at the Polk County Election Office — and then another ballot at a county satellite voting location away in Des Moines. Rote told Iowa Public Radio that she returned to the polls because she was afraid her first ballot for Trump would be changed to a vote for his Democratic presidential opponent Hillary Clinton.
“I wasn’t planning on doing it twice, it was spur of the moment,” she explained. “The polls are rigged,” she added — parroting Trump’s own jargon. She told The Washington Post she’s been a supporter of Trump since early in his campaign — and didn’t know what came over her when decided to vote twice. Rote was released Friday on a $5,000 bond.
Her next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 7, the Register reports. Two other suspects have been reported of casting mail-in ballots and also voting in person, the Register reports. Their political affiliations have not been identified. As of Friday morning, neither of those suspects have been arrested.
As news of Rote’s case broke, Trump urged his supporters to vote on Nov. 8 — letting them know their ballots will be counted but speculating that some corruption might still exist on the side of the ballot collectors. “I have real problems with ballots being sent [in early],” Trump said at his rally at Golden, Colorado, on Saturday — hinting that ballot collectors might be throwing ballots away. “We have a lot of people watching the people that collect the ballots … Whatever the hell you have to do, do it.”
People
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