A northern Minnesota woman accused of trying to submit a mail ballot for her recently deceased mother has been charged with three felonies. Authorities say the case shows how routine election safeguards thwart the rare instances of attempted voter fraud.
- Officials in Itasca County, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, said Monday that the improper vote was caught because the state provides a monthly list of people who've died to election officials, who then flag those names in the state's voter registration database, the AP reports. The woman returned ballots for herself and her mother in early October, and the county auditor's office, which oversees local elections, quickly verified that the mother had died at the end of August, almost three weeks before it began mailing out absentee ballots.