Criminal charges are being brought against three Arapahoe County
residents who voted twice in the 2008 presidential election,
District Attorney Carol Chambers and Arapahoe County Clerk and
Recorder Nancy Doty have announced.
Kyron Rough, 25, of Englewood, has been charged with a felony.
He is accused of impersonating his father at a polling place and
faces charges of forgery and criminal impersonation. Rough has also
been charged with a related misdemeanor, according to Lori Rase, a
spokeswoman for the 18th Judicial District.
Daniel Ramirez, 21, and Wade Almanza, 19, both Aurora residents,
have been charged with misdemeanors, Rase said. They allegedly
tried to vote twice, by mail and at a polling place.
Seven more voters remain under investigation for voting twice
and “face a strong probability of being charged,” Chambers’ office
said.
According to Doty, the suspected fraud was uncovered by checking
signatures. In the case of Rough, his signature did not match that
of his father.
The clerk said the county has a zero-tolerance policy for voter
fraud.
“We each have a right to vote, but only once,”she said. “Those
who vote twice are diluting the impact of each and every other
citizen’s vote.”
Since the 2008 election, a total of 44 potential incidents of
election fraud have been turned over to the 18th Judicial
District.
Depending on the circumstances, voting twice in an election can
be either a misdemeanor or a felony.
In any case, the message is simple, Doty says: Voting more than
once in the same election is election fraud — and a serious
crime.
“We want to publicize the results of these investigations and
the fact that charges are being aggressively sought because we
believe it will be a strong deterrent to others who may think they
can commit election fraud,” she said. “Our goal is to see that each
voter’s vote is properly cast and counted, so the candidates chosen
by the legitimate voters, who legally cast their ballots, are the
ones who we declare as elected.”
Prosecution for election fraud has been rare in Arapahoe County.
Doty said other cases of suspected election fraud have been brought
to the district attorney’s office in recent years, but that the
district attorney declined to prosecute many of them.
The 18th Judicial District includes Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert
and Lincoln counties.
