Last October, we wrote about "Young Virginia Democrat" Andrew Spieles, a student at James Madison University, and apparently "Lead Organizer" for HarrisonburgVOTES, who got caught registering dead people to vote. At the time, the founder of the organization, Joseph Fitzgerald, told reporters that he had no knowledge of Spieles’ actions and no idea "what his motivations were".
“He’s smart, and he understands the [political] process,” Fitzgerald told the Daily News-Record of Spieles. “Who the hell knows what his motivations were?”
And while we agree it"s always difficult to be 100% sure about anyone"s motivations, we said at the time that we would be willing to put money on it having something to do with registering a bunch of dead people and then having them all vote for Hillary in November....just a hunch.
Now, it appears that the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia has agreed with our initial assessment and has sentenced Spiels to prison time for his efforts. Per a local CBS affiliate, Spiels will spend 100-120 days behind bars.
James Madison University student Andrew J. Spieles, 21, of Harrisonburg, pled guilty Monday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. As part of the plea agreement, Spieles agreed to a prison sentence of 100 to 120 days.
Spieles worked for Harrisonburg Votes when he committed the crime, according to acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle.
Harrisonburg Votes is a political organization affiliated with the Democratic Party.
Here is how it all played out according to the U.S. Attorney"s office:
“In July 2016 Spieles’ job was to register as many voters as possible and reported to Democratic Campaign headquarters in Harrisonburg,” a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson said. “In August 2016, Spieles was directed to combine his registration numbers with those of another individual because their respective territories overlapped. After filling out a registration form for a voter, Spieles entered the information into a computer system used by the Virginia Democratic Party to track information such as name, age, address and political affiliation. Every Thursday an employee/volunteer hand-delivered the paper copies of the registration forms to the Registrar’s Office in Harrisonburg.”
Later that month, someone at the Registrar’s Office called police after another employee saw a name they recognized on a registration form.
The name was the deceased father of a Rockingham County Judge.
“The Registrar’s Office discovered multiple instances of similarly falsified forms when it reviewed additional registrations. Some were in the names of deceased individuals while others bore incorrect middle names, birth dates, and social security numbers,” the spokesperson continued. “The Registrar’s Office learned that the individuals named in these forms had not in fact submitted the new voter registrations. The assistant registrar’s personal knowledge of the names of some of the individuals named in the falsified documents facilitated the detection of the crime.
“Spieles later admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms by obtaining the name, age, and address of individuals from “walk sheets” provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party, fabricating a birth date based on the ages listed in the walk sheet, and fabricating the social security numbers. Spieles admitted that he created all 18 fraudulent forms himself and that no one else participated in the crime.”
Silly Spieles, he was just too young to realize that only experienced, professional politicians can get away with crimes like these.
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For those who missed it, here is our original post from last October.
Just yesterday we wrote about an FBI investigation into potential voter fraud in the critical swing state of Virginia after it was revealed that 19 dead people had recently been re-registered to vote (see "FBI Investigating More Dead People Voting In The Key Swing State Of Virginia"). While the Washington Post caught wind of the investigation, it was not known who was behind the operation...until now.
Meet, Andrew Spieles, a student at James Madison University, and apparently "Lead Organizer" for HarrisonburgVOTES. According to the Daily News-Record, Spieles confessed to re-registering 19 deceased Virginians to vote in the 2016 election cycle.
While this should come as a surprise to precisely 0 people, Spieles just happens to be Democrat who, accorded to a deleted FaceBook post, apparently recently ran for Caucus Chair of the Virginia Young Democrats.
It"s too bad really, sounds like Spieles had all the right "special talents" required to be very successful politician...he just forgot the most important first rule: "Don"t get caught."
The 19 applications of deceased citizens were submitted by Spieles through an organization called HarrisonburgVOTES. According to the organization"s "About Us" page, HarrisonburgVOTES is a "non-partisan" voter registration organization in Harrisonburg, VA and the surrounding areas.
As the HarrisonburgVOTES webpage points out, the sole goal of the organization is to raise the number of registered voters in Harrisonburg to 25,000...though it"s unclear what percentage of that goal was intended to be filled by dead voters.
The sole goal of HarrisonburgVOTES is to increase the number of registered voters in Harrisonburg and the surrounding areas to increase and encourage civic engagement.
Harrisonburg has the lowest percentage of voting age population (VAP) registered to vote among Virginia localities. Very roughly, about 17,000 people are registered to vote and about 18,000 are voting age and not registered. The goal of HarrisonburgVOTES will be to overcome these issues and raise the number of registered voters to 25,000.
HarrisonburgVOTES was founded by Joseph Fitzgerald who, "shockingly", is also a prominent democrat in Harrisonburg. Fitzgerald is currently Chairman of the Sixth Congressional District Democratic Committee in Virginia and the former Mayor of Harrisonburg.
Fitzgerald told reporters, of course, that his organization had no knowledge of Spieles’s actions and fired him immediately after his confession.
“He’s smart, and he understands the [political] process,” Fitzgerald told the Daily News-Record of Spieles. “Who the hell knows what his motivations were?”
While we agree it"s difficult to be 100% sure about anyone"s motivations, we would be willing to put money on it having something to do with registering a bunch of dead people and then having them all vote for Hillary in November....just a hunch.
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