Minnesota woman who cast dead mom's ballot for Trump in 2024 ordered to write essay on voting
It comes after Trump issued false claims that fraudulent mail-in voting was partially to blame for his 2020 loss to Joe Biden
A Minnesota judge this week sentenced a woman to write a 10-page essay on voting's importance to democracy, after she was convicted of filing a mail-in ballot in support of Donald Trump in 2024 for her mother, who was deceased.
Danielle Christine Miller, 51, was charged last year with three felonies when local election officials discovered two absentee ballots had been flagged for fraud. The revelation came in the wake of false claims from Trump in 2020 that fraudulent mail-in voting was partially to blame for his election loss to Joe Biden.
“I think the sentence that was imposed here is very much designed to help her better understand the importance of those things and make sure that she doesn’t — and quite frankly other people don’t — take the same type of actions in the future,” the prosecutor in Miller's case said.
According to court papers, Miller told an investigator that she had filled out her mother’s absentee ballot and signed her mother’s name on its signature envelope, The Associated Press reported. She said her mother was an avid Trump supporter and wanted to vote for him, but she died in August 2024 before receiving an absentee ballot, according to the complaint. Miller also said she signed her mother’s signature as a witness on her own ballot, the document said.
Miller pleaded guilty last week to intentionally making or signing a false certificate. As part of her plea, she claimed she was intoxicated when submitting the mail ballots and was unable to precisely remember what she did, but agreed that the evidence could find her guilty, Fauchald said. A message left for Miller’s attorney was not immediately returned.
Minnesota Ninth Judicial District Judge Heidi Chandler on Wednesday dismissed the other two charges. Miller’s sentence includes up to three years of supervised probation and an $885 fine.
The judge also imposed some other unorthodox conditions.
Miller must read a book about the history of voting in America and current related issues, “Thank You for Voting: The Maddening, Enlightening, Inspiring Truth About Voting in America,” by Erin Geiger Smith; and she was ordered to write a 10-page paper “regarding the importance in voting in a democracy and how election fraud can undermine the voting process.”
Fauchald said the sentence is a fair outcome. He called the paper a unique aspect of sentencing, but a fair expectation.
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