A man who attempted to vote twice in Virginia's 2023 election was acquitted of attempted illegal voting on Monday, following his claims in court that he had been testing the the system for voter fraud.

NELSON COUNTY, Va. — A jury in this bright-red corner of rural Virginia found an avid Donald Trump fan not guilty of attempted illegal voting in a one-day trial Monday, accepting the man’s claim that he was only trying to test the election system for voter fraud when he asked to vote a second time in local elections last year.

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  • anon6789@lemmy.world
    41·
    2 months ago

    The referenced article from Cardinal News goes into much more detail.

    In an interview with Virginia State Police on Feb. 8, Bell portrayed his second visit to the polls as a joke, according to the special agents who testified. In a recording of the interview, he said, “I was messing to see if they were gonna let me vote again to see what kind of fraud was going on.”

    He told the agents, “But I went in and gave them my ID and then it showed up [that] I’d already voted.” He added, “So I was doing a little detective work.”

    Commonwealth’s Attorney Daniel Rutherford took a dim view of Bell’s account, and noted that he was not authorized to test the system. The crime, Rutherford pointed out, is “attempting to vote twice, not voting twice.”

    Would punishment fix this guy? Probably not. But now that this judge opens the door for other people to conduct their own tests, where does this stop? How many Trumpies do we let test the system? The poll workers have real jobs to do, and they don’t need guys like this there. Laws like this are supposed to be good laws because they deter the action, rather than have to actually punish someone for doing one dumb thing, but if you allow the dumb thing, you negate the law itself.

    Lots of great stuff in the Cardinal article too, like this nugget at the end that is very interesting:

    The jury deliberated for an hour and came back with a not guilty verdict. When the seven women and five men were polled about the verdict, Juror 12 said, “That’s not my verdict.”

    Judge Michael Doucette sent the jury back to work on the verdict, and while they were out for about 10 minutes before coming back with a unanimous decision, Rutherford said he’d never seen a juror announce that he did not agree with the verdict. Juror 12 declined to comment after the jury was dismissed.