Commonwealth Investigating Possible Fairfax Voting Fraud

Fairfax County has discovered that more than one dozen people may have voted in both Fairfax and Montgomery (Md.) counties during the 2012 General Election.

The Fairfax County Electoral Board has referred 17 names to the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney, the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia and the federal Department of Justice for investigation of possible voter fraud. The county says some of the people’s names have appeared in multiple federal elections over the last decade.

“The Electoral Board takes its responsibility to ensure election integrity seriously,” Board Secretary Brian W. Schoeneman said in a statement. “After our initial review of county voting records and a comparison to Maryland voting records, we determined that it was in the public interest to refer these individuals to law enforcement for investigation.”

Schoeneman says the people “have not been accused of a crime and are of diverse ages, genders and political affiliations.”

The issues were revealed earlier this year after a third party voter organization review.  The county then requested voting records from Maryland, which were compared to Fairfax County’s records.  A review of those records led the board to conclude that there was sufficient evidence to warrant referrals to law enforcement for further investigation. A statewide list was provided to the Virginia Department of Elections, Schoeneman said.