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Barry Morphew, a Colorado man who was previously charged with the murder of his still-missing wife has pleaded guilty to casting a presidential ballot under her name for Donald Trump in the 2020 general election.
Morphew admitted to filling out the mail-in ballot for his wife, Suzanne Morphew, "because I wanted Trump to win." He said he did so because he "figured all these other guys are cheating," referring to the Democrats.
Morphew has pleaded guilty to forgery and was sentenced to one year of supervised probation. His lawyer toldThe New York Times that he "believed that because he could sign legal documents for [his wife], that the ballot, similarly, was under his authority."
\u201cThe husband of a Colorado woman who has been missing for more than two years pleaded guilty on Thursday to casting her mail-in ballot for Donald Trump during the 2020 election, telling FBI agents, \u201cI figured all these other guys are cheating.\u201d https://t.co/qiMEpeCWcl\u201d— The New York Times (@The New York Times) 1658518809
Suzanne Morphew has been missing since she failed to return from a bike ride in May 2020. Her body has not been found.
Her husband was charged with first-degree murder last year but charges were ultimately dropped after a judge ruled that prosecutors had violated discovery rules, the formal process of exchanging information between the parties about the witnesses and evidence they intend to present at trial.
The district attorney will have the opportunity to refile charges against Morphew because the case against him was dismissed without prejudice.
The news that Morphew had cast his wife's missing ballot quickly circulated on social media and many condemned his actions.
\u201cAnother republican cheated by voting twice.\u201d— Della Wayn (@Della Wayn) 1658716668
\u201cit\u2019s always projection with these people. also dig up his yard.\u201d— abort the court (@abort the court) 1658585788
\u201cThe only election fraud is the one committed by Republicans\u201d— Julie (@Julie) 1658587005
\u201cThere\u2019s something much worse than voter-fraud going on here!\u201d— Marylou von Heyman (@Marylou von Heyman) 1658589960
\u201cAlmost every time there is a report of actual voter fraud, it is a Republican committing it - yet they are the ones yelling about this "Election Integrity" BS all the time. \ud83e\udd14\n\n#MoreGOPVoterFraud\u201d— chuckwestover (@chuckwestover) 1658596551
\u201cMy regular reminder that voter fraud, a vanishingly rare and statistically insignificant crime, is also an almost exclusively Republican phenomena.\u201d— Max Burbank (@Max Burbank) 1658600017
\u201cOnce again-the cheating is almost always MAGA.\u201d— Liz Thomson (@Liz Thomson) 1658605648
\u201cThe One Demographic that Trump has really nailed down\u2026\n\nMen who killed their wives and used her ballot to vote.\u201d— Hal Sparks (@Hal Sparks) 1658632649
\u201c\u201cI figured all these other guys are cheating.\u201d That's the key.\n\nEvery fake allegation of misdeeds by Democrats creates a pretext and defense for actual misdeeds by Republicans.\n\nhttps://t.co/N5Wf54TGm7\u201d— Dr. Bryan Edward Stone (@Dr. Bryan Edward Stone) 1658582600
Although voting twice in the same election is illegal, that did not stop former President Trump, who has long asserted that the 2020 general election was stolen, from advocating for it.
Trump generated controversy ahead of the election when he urged North Carolinians to vote twice on Election Day, saying:
"Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system's as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote. If it isn't tabulated, they'll be able to vote. That's the way it is and that's what they should do."
The following day, Trump attacked the process of mail-in voting (which research shows greatly increases voter turnout) and suggested people send in their ballots as soon as possible, go to their polling places when early voting became available to see if their vote has been counted, and then vote in person if their vote had not been tabulated.
No polling place works this way.
In many states, the process of counting votes does not begin until polling places are officially closed on Election Day. Many states also have an online system that allows voters to check the status of their mail-in ballot and see if it's been received.
There is no reason whatsoever to go to a polling place and vote again if you've already voted.
There is no evidence that the 2020 general election was stolen and Trump's statements often ran counter to the findings of federal agencies.
In fact, a statement from the Trump administration's own Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of a joint statement from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees, affirmed the agencies found "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."