A defense attorney for Shaker Heights, Ohio man James Saunders, himself an attorney who formerly worked for the IRS, told a judge on Wednesday his client “accidentally” voted twice in both the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, imploring the judge to “come to a just result here that acknowledges that, yes, mistakes do happen, accidents do happen” and acquit Saunders of the two felony voter fraud counts in the bench trial, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reports.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Andrew Rogalski said that might’ve worked if Saunders had only fucked around in one national election, not two. “The fact that you do that in consecutive general elections I think takes ‘accident’ to the land of imaginary doubt, and not reasonable doubt.”
Saunders, who FEC records list as a regular Trump donor, is accused of voting in person early in Ohio in October 2020, then again on election day in Broward County, Florida on the 2020 count. On the midterms count, he voted by mail in Florida on November 3, 2022, and then again in person back home in Cuyahoga County on election day, November 8, 2022. Another reminder that he probably would not have been caught if Ohio and Florida had not been members of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) at the time he voted. Both states withdrew from the compact earlier this year… Too late for Saunders, but just in time to help other MAGA cheaters in 2024.