Nevada man charged with casting his dead wife’s ballot in 2020

A Nevada man is facing criminal charges for casting his dead wife’s ballot during the 2020 presidential election.

Donald Kirk Hartle is charged with two felony voter fraud crimes for voting twice, including once in the name of his wife Rosemarie Hartle, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) said in a statement.

Ford said that voter fraud is rare but “but when it happens it undercuts trust in our election system and will not be tolerated by my office.” 

Hartle previously told local CBS affiliate KLAS in November that a ballot for Rosemarie Hartle had been received by Clark County officials but that the ballot never arrived at his house. The news outlet found that the ballot was counted and that her name appeared on the active voter list even though she died of breast cancer in 2017. 

“That is pretty sickening to me to be honest with you,” Hartle told the outlet in November. “It made no sense to me, but it lent some credence to what you’ve been hearing in the media about these possibilities and now it makes me wonder, how pervasive is this?” 

The Nevada Republican Party cited Hartle’s case as one of multiple instances of voter fraud they say helped swing the presidential election. A review by Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske (R) found that only 10 of the more than 1,500 people the party alleged to have voted even though they were deceased were cases of fraud, The Nevada Independent noted.

Hartle is charged with voting using the name of another person, as well as voting more than once in the same election. Both charges are punishable by up to four years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

Nevada was one of several swing states that former President Trump and his allies have alleged fraud in after President Biden won the state in 2020. Biden won 50 percent of the vote in the state over Trump’s 47.7 percent; Trump narrowly lost the state in 2016.