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A resident from the Peach State is now facing a 25-year prison sentence after illegally voting twice in Georgia’s 2021 Senate runoff election.
As reported by Just the News, 62-year-old Georgia resident William Chase was convicted of voter fraud charges after submitting two ballots, one of which he reportedly forged, in the state’s 2021 Senate runoff election.
Chase was able to submit a second ballot after a Walker County resident’s absentee ballot was accidentally sent to an old PO Box address, a press release obtained by the outlet revealed. As the resident contacted the Elections Office in Walker County to inquire about the missing ballot, the Elections Office noted that they already had accepted, not yet counted, a signed absentee ballot for the resident.
Upon the resident’s verification that it was not her signature on her ballot, the Elections Office “immediately cancelled the forged ballot” and sent another one to the resident’s current address, the press release added.
Furthermore, the Elections Office contacted the Secretary of State’s Office asking for an investigator to be assigned to the case. According to the press release, records showed that the PO Box belonged to Chase, who already sent in his own ballot for the state’s runoff election. The ballot was sent off to a GBI crime lab for fingerprint analysis, which later matched the fingerprints found on the forged ballot to Chase, the release noted.
Per the press release, the jury concluded that Chase “signed and delivered the forged absentee ballot, signed the Oath of Elector as the resident, marked the ballot for the resident without the authority to do so, and voted twice in the same election.” Chase was sentenced to 25 years, with the first 15 years to be served without the possibility of parole.
The Peach State has been plagued with election anomalies since the 2020 presidential election.
Recently, VoterGA, a Georgia election integrity group, announced through a November press conference that it filed new litigation against Cobb, Coweta, and Forsyth counties in Georgia for “destruction of original ballot images,” while also seeking to unseal the ballots for independent, high-resolution scanning, as reported by RSBN.