There’s a lot of talk about alleged voter fraud, but it isn’t often that you see someone get convicted of trying to vote fraudulently in someone else’s name.
But that’s exactly why a Santa Fe realtor is on probation, The Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting.
Teresa Monahan, according to the newspaper, “was charged and pleaded guilty in June to attempting to cast a ballot in the name of her dead brother” in a Santa Fe special election for a proposed tax on expensive homes that would have helped pay for affordable housing.
The proposal to add a 1 percent fee “on the portion of any home sale exceeding $750,000 and put the proceeds into a trust fund to support affordable housing programs” was narrowly defeated, the newspaper article states.
From the newspaper’s article:
“Monahan, 64, cast her own early ballot in the election. Then on Feb. 12, according to county records, she requested an absentee-by-mail ballot for Thomas E. Monahan, who had died the prior December.”
When county election officials caught the attempt, the newspaper reported, Monahan “owned up to the forgery right away.”
Monahan’s attorney, Dan Marlowe, told the newspaper the act was “totally out of character” for Monahan, who had worked for decades as an investigator for state agencies including the attorney general.
“She was under unbelievable stress and strain. She was actually taking care of her brother in the last years of his life, and it was just sending her off the deep end,” the newspaper quoted Marlowe as saying.
The fourth-degree felony conviction included a conditional discharge, meaning it will be erased from Monahan’s record in June if she complies with the terms of her probation. She was sentenced to between nine and 18 months on probation.
Get the rest of the details from The New Mexican by clicking here.