Election fraud does happen, but it’s often not prosecuted.   When it’s more economically or politically beneficial for state attorneys general, secretaries of state, and county clerks and prosecutors to turn a blind eye to it, it happens more easily.  The lack of prosecution does not mean violations don’t occur.

On Thursday, November 15, 2012, a federal judge sentenced a West Virginia county commissioner to 21 months in federal prison “… for lying to an FBI agent about absentee ballot applications, which prosecutors say were part of a scheme to sway Lincoln County’s 2010 Democratic primary.”  The scheme involved collusion with an employee of the county clerk’s office.

The conviction was reported in a press release from the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of West Virginia.  The details were reported in a Seattle P-I online article headlined  Ex-W.Va. county official sentenced to 21 months.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and investigator Jim Wise of the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office.   It appears that West Virginia has an honest and diligent Secretary of State.