A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty to voter fraud charges after he illegally cast a ballot for former President Trump using his dead mother’s name during the 2020 presidential election.
Bruce Bartman, 70, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of perjury and one count of unlawful voting and was sentenced to five years of probation, according to The Associated Press. In addition, he will not be allowed to vote in an election for four years and is no longer eligible to serve on a jury.
He apologized for his actions and blamed his decision on consuming false claims about the election.
“I was isolated last year in lockdown,” Bartman told the judge. “I listened to too much propaganda and made a stupid mistake.”
His attorney, Samuel Stretton, described his behavior as “a very misguided political mistake, and very stupid,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Common Pleas Court Judge George Pagano described the case as one that “goes to the heart of our democracy” and commended Bartman for accepting responsibility for his action.
Bartman, of Marple Township, used the driver’s license of his mother Elizabeth Bartman to register her to vote online, and then requested and filled out an absentee ballot in her name, prosecutors said.
Elizabeth Bartman died in 2008 and the state’s voter system correctly flagged the fraudulent registration of a deceased person. However, Bartman signed a document and sent it back asserting that she was still alive.
He repeated the process for his deceased mother-in-law, Elizabeth Weihman, using her Social Security number but did not ultimately cast a ballot in her name.
Local investigators said they began investigating when rumors began circulating about a ballot being illegally cast on social media. A complaint was eventually filed to the Delaware County Board of Elections, the Inquirer reported, and a task force was able to find evidence of a possible crime.
Bartman was arrested in December and was one of three Pennsylvania men accused of committing fraud to vote for Trump. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the other two criminal cases are still pending.
Now-President Biden beat Trump in they Keystone State by more than 80,000 votes, helping him secure the necessary 270 electoral votes needed for the White House.
Trump and his campaign officials launched a lengthy and unsuccessful legal campaign attempting to overturn the results but statewide investigations have shown their claims about widespread voter fraud were false.