Voting while Republican
Voter fraud is extremely rare. But when a real, prosecuted case does surface, it keeps turning out to be a Trump supporter — several of them caught casting a dead relative's ballot for Trump. One starred in a Republican ad claiming his dead wife's vote was stolen. He had cast it himself.
Every case here ended in a guilty plea or conviction in a real court. This is not a claim that Republicans commit mass fraud — fraud is rare on all sides, and mirror-imaging the panic would be the same error we document. The finding is narrower and sharper: the movement that treats near-nonexistent fraud as a national emergency keeps supplying the actual, prosecuted culprits.
What this page is about
The companion page to this one establishes that voter fraud is extremely rare. This page documents a pattern inside that rarity: when a genuine, prosecuted case of individual voter fraud does appear, a conspicuous share of them involve Trump supporters — and more than one involves casting a deceased relative's ballot for Trump, out of the belief that the election was being stolen.
Bruce Bartman voted his dead mother's ballot for Trump in Pennsylvania. Donald “Kirk” Hartle was held up in a Nevada Republican ad as a victim of a stolen dead-spouse vote — until investigators found he had cast it himself. Ralph Thurman put on a disguise to vote a second time. Edward Snodgrass, a Republican township trustee in Ohio, forged his dead father's absentee ballot. Every one pleaded guilty. None of it proves mass fraud; all of it complicates who gets to sound the alarm.
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Step through it here, or present it fullscreen.
Voting While Republican
When individual voter fraud actually gets prosecuted, a striking share of the cases are Trump supporters — several who cast a dead relative's ballot for Trump. One starred in a GOP ad claiming his dead wife's vote was stolen. He'd cast it himself.
The record, in order
Every dated event on this page, assembled chronologically. The page may cover events in a different order for the narrative; this is the straight timeline.
- May 3, 2021Bruce Bartman (Pennsylvania) — cast his dead mother's 2020 ballot for Trump.
- Jul 1, 2021Edward Snodgrass (Ohio) — a Republican township trustee who forged his dead father's absentee ballot.
- Sep 20, 2021Ralph Thurman (Pennsylvania) — voted, then returned in a disguise to vote again as his son.
- Oct 22, 2021Donald 'Kirk' Hartle (Nevada) — starred in a GOP ad as a fraud victim; he was the one who cast the dead-spouse ballot.
Prosecuted, and pleaded guilty
Bruce Bartman (Pennsylvania) — cast his dead mother's 2020 ballot for Trump.
FACTBartman, a registered Republican, fraudulently re-registered his deceased mother and used her identity to cast a mail ballot for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. He pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury and one count of unlawful voting, and was sentenced to five years' probation with a four-year loss of voting rights. He told the court he acted 'out of frustration,' believing the election was rigged — the fraud committed in the name of the fraud that wasn't there.
Donald 'Kirk' Hartle (Nevada) — starred in a GOP ad as a fraud victim; he was the one who cast the dead-spouse ballot.
FACTHartle, a Nevada Republican, publicly claimed that someone had fraudulently voted the 2020 ballot of his late wife, Rosemarie — a story the Nevada Republican Party amplified as proof of election fraud. Investigators concluded that Hartle himself had cast the ballot. He pleaded guilty to voting more than once in the same election and received a fine and probation. It is the most self-refuting case in the entire fraud-panic canon: the advertised 'evidence' of stolen votes was the accuser's own crime.
“The proof of fraud was the accuser.”
Ralph Thurman (Pennsylvania) — voted, then returned in a disguise to vote again as his son.
FACTThurman, a registered Republican, voted at his Chester County precinct in 2020 and then returned wearing a hat and sunglasses to cast a second ballot in the name of his registered-Democrat son. Poll workers recognized him. He pleaded guilty to repeat voting and was sentenced to three years' probation.
Edward Snodgrass (Ohio) — a Republican township trustee who forged his dead father's absentee ballot.
FACTSnodgrass, a Porter Township trustee in Delaware County, Ohio, signed and submitted his deceased father's absentee ballot — mailed after his father had died — in addition to casting his own vote. He pleaded guilty to falsification and illegal voting, and was sentenced to three days in jail and a $500 fine. He described it as an 'honest error.'
Hypocrisy, not a mirror-image panic
- What it shows. When a rare, real case of individual ballot fraud is actually prosecuted, a conspicuous share of them are Trump supporters — frequently casting a dead relative's vote for Trump, motivated by the belief the election was stolen.
- What it does not show. That Republicans commit fraud at scale. They do not; almost no one does. These are isolated cases, exactly as our rarity page shows fraud is isolated on every side. To claim otherwise would be to repeat the panic we are documenting.
- The actual point. The hypocrisy of proportion. A movement that treats a near-nonexistent problem as a five-alarm emergency — and builds proof-of-citizenship gates and poll-monitor armies around it — keeps supplying the real culprits when the rare case appears.
Who is sounding the alarm
Credibility on election integrity is earned by the record, not the volume. The loudest voices warning of stolen elections have, more than once, been the ones a court found had stolen a vote — often a dead parent's or spouse's, cast for their own candidate. Set that against the extreme rarity of fraud and the decades-long campaign to make voting harder, and the shape of the thing comes clear: an emergency manufactured around a threat that barely exists, promoted by people who keep committing the very act they warn about.
Questions worth taking seriously
Aren't you doing exactly what you criticize — cherry-picking a few cases to smear a party?
We say plainly that these are isolated cases and that fraud is rare on all sides — we are not claiming Republicans commit mass fraud. The point isn't a fraud statistic; it's the hypocrisy of proportion. When the rare real case is prosecuted, it keeps being a Trump supporter, often voting a dead relative's ballot for Trump. That is a documented irony about who sounds the alarm, not a claim about rates.
Why leave out Mark Meadows or Ken Paxton?
Because this hub's bar is a charge or a conviction, and neither cleanly qualifies. The North Carolina Attorney General declined to charge Meadows over his registration at an address he had reportedly never lived in, and we found no clean, adjudicated Paxton case. Including un-adjudicated matters is exactly the sloppiness we criticize elsewhere, so they stay out.
If you are named on this page
If you are named on this page, or are a party materially affected by the claims made here, and you wish to respond, correct the record, or add context, use the Contact page. Responses are published verbatim alongside the original claim, with the sender identified and the date of receipt. The channel stays open for the life of the page.
This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The record
- CNN — Bruce Bartman, probation for casting his dead mother's ballot for Trump
- Washington Post — Bartman guilty plea (Pennsylvania)
- Washington Post — Kirk Hartle, the Nevada dead-spouse ballot he cast himself
- Nevada Attorney General — voter-fraud charges against Hartle
- Philadelphia Inquirer — Ralph Thurman, the disguise double-vote
- NBC4 Columbus — Edward Snodgrass, Ohio township trustee, dead father's ballot
- The Hill — Snodgrass, the “honest error” account