Two Bucks County women face charges of voter fraud after authorities say they filled out mail-in ballot applications for their dead mothers in separate incidents ahead of the November election, the county District Attorney’s Office announced Friday night.
The allegations come after the Bucks County Detectives investigated 22 complaints of voter fraud and other irregularities in the presidential election that saw record voter turnout here.
While the investigation resulted in charges against the women, District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said his office found the incidents were isolated and there was no evidence of “widespread or systematic election fraud here in Bucks County.”
“In each of these cases, the system caught the fraud first, as it was designed to do,” he said in a statement Friday night. Formal charges are expected to be filed Monday, officials said.
Danielle Elaine Dooner, 56, of Buckingham, and Melissa Ann Fisher, 51, of Quakertown, will be charged by summons with one count each of violations of provisions relating to absentee and mail-in ballots, a misdemeanor of the third degree, according to the DA’s Office.
The 2020 election year was the first time Pennsylvania voters were able to use the new “no-excuse” mail-in ballot option allowed under Act 77 of 2019. The change allowed voters to cast a mail-in ballot without having to be absent from their home voting precincts, an option previously reserved for absentee voters.
Nearly 165,000 Bucks County voters cast a ballot by mail in 2020. That’s almost 42% of all ballots cast.
The DA’s Office alleges on or about Sept. 27, 2020, and Oct. 17, 2020, Dooner completed an application for a Pennsylvania mail-in ballot for the general election for her mother, who died on Sept. 29, 2020.
Fisher, Weintraub said, signed the declaration on the ballot purporting to be her mother on Oct. 7. On or about March 30, 2020, and Oct. 1, Fisher completed an application for a Pennsylvania mail-in ballot for the election for her mother, who died on Sept. 21, 2020.
According to a statement from his office, a handwriting analysis confirmed that Dooner’s mother did not sign either the application or the ballot and those documents were signed by Dooner after her mother had died.
A handwriting analysis also confirmed that Fisher’s mother did not sign and her election documents were signed by Fisher after the woman’s death, according to the DA’s Office.
The District Attorney’s Office does not know the party registrations of either of the women or their victims, nor which candidate they voted for on the fraudulent ballots, officials said in a news release.
Neither ballots were counted or opened, the DA said.
Weintraub said this office fielded complaints since September about the election. Allegations ranged from residency/address issues, voter intimidation, threats to the Bucks County Board of Elections, ballots found in trash, ballot tampering, and family members voting for their deceased loved ones.
Both county political parties, as well as residents and state and government officials, filed complaints, according to the office.
“In some of these investigations, the detectives obtained DNA samples from ballots and voters for analysis, took handwriting samples from voters, prepared and served search warrants for IP addresses for electronic mail-in-ballot application submissions, reviewed video surveillance of county government facilities, contacted and spoke to postal carriers and contacted and spoke to FBI agents assigned to voter irregularities,” the office said in a statement.
