A federal jury in Philadelphia has found a former Bucks County resident guilty of voting twice for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, rejecting his claim that a pardon issued by President Donald Trump protected him from prosecution.
Matthew Laiss, 32, was convicted Wednesday of one count of voting more than once in a federal election and one count of voter fraud. Prosecutors said the case centred on Laiss casting ballots in two different states during the same election.
Laiss is scheduled for sentencing on June 10 and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each count.
According to prosecutors, Laiss lived in Ottsville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for several years and had been registered to vote there since at least 2012. Around August 2020, he moved to Frostproof, Florida, where he obtained a driver’s license and also registered to vote.
Investigators said that on or around Oct. 31, 2020, Laiss submitted a mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania. Just days later, on Nov. 3, 2020, he went to a polling location in Florida and cast another vote in person.
Federal authorities argued that the double voting violated election laws designed to ensure fairness and prevent voter fraud. “Today’s conviction reinforces a simple principle: our elections must be fair, secure, and lawful, ” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said in a statement.
“Casting a ballot in more than one jurisdiction undermines public trust and dilutes the votes of others. Our office will continue to protect the integrity of federal elections and hold accountable those who violate the law,” Metcalf said.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI with assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of State. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff handled the prosecution.
Laiss’s defence attorneys attempted to have the charges dismissed before trial, arguing that their client was protected by a pardon proclamation issued by Trump on Nov. 7 of last year. They said Laiss had accepted the pardon and therefore should not face criminal prosecution.
Although Trump identified 77 individuals in the proclamation as recipients of relief, Laiss was not among those named. His lawyers argued, however, that language in the preamble extended the pardon more broadly to “all United States citizens” for conduct involving voting, advocacy or actions related to the contest of the 2020 election.
They also pointed out that several Trump allies, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mark Meadows, were specifically granted pardons despite facing what they described as “exponentially more egregious alleged conduct.”
Denying relief to Laiss while pardoning those figures, his attorneys wrote, “would be outrageous.” Prosecutors countered that the pardon did not apply to Laiss. They said they consulted the Trump Administration’s Office of the Pardon Attorney and were told that officials there did not believe the proclamation covered his case.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Leeson Jr. rejected Laiss’s request to dismiss the indictment. In a January ruling, Leeson said the court lacked jurisdiction to decide the pardon issue because Laiss had not formally applied to the Office of the Pardon Attorney or received a certificate confirming a pardon.
The case proceeded to trial, where the jury ultimately sided with the prosecutors and found Laiss guilty on both counts.
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