Four Wake residents charged with voting twice

Posted on by

Authorities charged four Wake County residents with voter fraud in connection with the last presidential election.

Three Wake County voters charged for double voting.

According to news reports, “twenty-six-year-old Kierra Fontae Leache of Pheiffer Drive in Raleigh, 46-year-old Shelia “Sheilia” Romona Hodges, also of Pheiffer Drive in Raleigh, and 25-year-old Brandon Earl McLean of Bethune Drive in Raleigh, allegedly cast two ballot votes in 2008.”

Two of those rocket surgeons “participated in early voting” at Raleigh’s Chavis Heights Community Center and then walked into their own precinct on Election Day. Not realizing they’d get caught, they again voted that day in their own names.

“But wait,” you may be thinking, “that’s only three people!”

The fourth person, 54-year-old Lela Devonetta Murray of Edwards Mill Road in Raleigh, was also charged with voter registration fraud.

Authorities charge that she voted on Election Day 2010 as a transfer voter in one precinct and then voted on Election Day provisionally in another precinct. The reason given for the second vote was “wrong precinct.”

WTVD took down the original video piece on this story, but archived the print story, which you can read here.

For some strange reason, the ABC affiliate also deleted the pictures of those charged, but we dug them up through our own vast archives.

According to sources, the then Director of Election, Cherie Poucher, fought with DA Colin Willoughby for three years before he would bother prosecuting these three illegal voters, but even then, the results were less than satisfactory:

All three accepted plea bargains that replaced the Class i felony charges with a misdemeanor charge of “attempted vote fraud.” Their penalty was a $200 fine, plus court costs.

As convicted felons, these three would normally lose their voting rights, but Willoughby had a job to do. He made sure these three Democrats would not lose their voting rights in future elections and at least one of them has been a reliable Democrat voter ever since.

Who said crime doesn’t pay?!