The Boston Globe reports on sentencing in the absentee voter fraud case in Massachusetts:
Secretary of State William F. Galvin said
he will oversee an upcoming election in Everett, specifically the use of
absentee ballots, after a federal investigation found that a former
state representative rigged ballots in three recent elections.
Galvin’s announcement was made Friday as Stephen W. Smith, who
resigned his seat after he was implicated, pleaded guilty in federal
court to two civil rights violations of deprivation of rights under the
color of law, for infringing on others’ voting rights.
...In some cases, prosecutors said ineligible voters filled out the
ballot and returned them. In other cases, the ballots sent to unaware
voters were intercepted and unlawfully filled out on their behalf.
Prosecutors would not say exactly how many people participated in the scheme or why no one else has been charged.
In court, Assistant US Attorney Eugenia M. Carris said only that the
scheme “deprived qualified voters . . . by diluting the valid ballots
that were cast.”