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This morning, the Associated Press is reporting that former Trump campaign and administration official Matt Mowers voted twice in the 2016 election.
This is against the law.
Highlights of the AP report below:
Matt Mowers voted twice
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A former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, potentially violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican Party’s intense focus on “election integrity.”
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Matt Mowers, a leading Republican primary candidate looking to unseat Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state.
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Four months later, after Christie’s bid fizzled, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey’s Republican presidential primary, using his parents’ address to re-register in his home state, documents The Associated Press obtained through a public records request show.
Legal expert said “it looks like he’s [Mowers] violated federal law.”
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Legal experts say Mowers’ actions could violate a federal law that prohibits “voting more than once” in “any general, special, or primary election.” That includes casting a ballot in separate jurisdictions “for an election to the same candidacy or office.” It also puts Mowers, who was a senior advisor in Donald Trump’s administration and later held a State Department post, in an awkward spot at a time when much of his party has embraced the former president’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and has pushed for restrictive new election laws.
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“What he has done is cast a vote in two different states for the election of a president, which on the face of it looks like he’s violated federal law,” said David Schultz, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who specializes in election law. ”You get one bite at the voting apple.”
Mowers is running on “election integrity” after getting caught voting twice
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His own campaign website has leaned in on the issue, featuring a section dedicated to “election integrity.” It states that new rules are needed to “provide every American citizen with the certainty that their vote counts.”
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He also echoes the long-standing Republican criticism about out-of-state voters, endorsing an efforts by the state’s legislature to make sure “only legal residents of New Hampshire are entitled to vote.”
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