‘You Are A Criminal’: Judge Slams The Gavel On Women For Ballot Harvesting, Sentences Her To Jail, “You committed a criminal offense”

Disclaimer: This article may contain the viewpoint and opinion of the author.

Ballot harvesting occurs when political operatives collect absentee ballots from voters’ homes, drop off boxes or any other location, and drop them off at a polling place. It may seem harmless but it has been abused across the United States. 

It isn’t just picking up the absentee ballots and dropping them off as a favor to anybody. They pick the Ballots up, fill them out how they want to, and then bring them to the drop-off location. Some states have laws indicating only family members can drop off ballots but some have no restrictions at all. 

During the 2020 Presidential Election, Arizona was one of the states heavily contested. Claims of voter fraud and harvesting occurred all over the state. Biden narrowly beat Trump by just 10,457 votes. The state took nearly four weeks to certify the November 3rd election even after an official hand recount.

An Arizona judge recently sentenced two women to jail for harvesting ballots during Yuma County’s 2020m Presidential election. The women, Guillermina Fuentes and Alma Yadira were sentenced by Judge Bruce Nelson. 

Judge Nelson imposed a 30-day jail sentence for Fuentes, who pleaded guilty in June to felony ballot abuse in a scheme that involved collecting ballots from other voters in violation of Arizona’s anti-ballot harvesting law. Once out of jail, Fuentes will be on supervised probation for 24 months, Nelson ordered.

Fuentes is a former Mayor of San Luis, Arizona, and a current local school board member which contributed to Judge Nelson’s decision. “She knew she was taking advantage of the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Sergio Arellano, executive director of Conserva Mi Voto. 

Prosecutors alleged Fuentes ran a sophisticated operation using her status in Democratic politics in San Luis to persuade voters to let her gather and, in some cases, fill out their ballots. But they dropped more serious charges of conspiracy and forgery and both pleaded guilty to a single count of ballot abuse.

Ballot harvesting is not the only issue Arizona has with its elections. Arizona law requires that to be considered valid, ballots must be received by the county no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day. However, Maricopa County did not follow the law. 

According to Thegatewaypundit.com, Maricopa County only rejected 934 ballots for lateness despite receiving nearly 20,000 late Ballots. The result is over 19,000 ballots counted that shouldn’t have been. Trump lost to Biden in Arizona by less than 11,000 votes.

The votes would have to be examined individually to see which candidate was on them. Who knows if that would change the outcome? However, the law was not followed. It led to vote counting that shouldn’t have been.

The 2024 mid-term elections are less than a month away and Arizona has already experienced controversy with mail-in ballots. 63,000 voters in Pinal County have received mail-in ballots with errors on the forms or have not received them.

The errors include incorrect addresses, missing election races, missing candidates, and voters receiving ballots to vote in races they are not eligible for or not receiving ballots. One voter, Rhonda Barber, told ABC15 she “never received her ballot and her mother’s ballot was missing certain things.”

Tiffany Shedd told the AZ Free News her son received his ballot so he could vote for the Casa Grande City Council race. The one problem, they don’t live in the Casa Grande and are not eligible to vote in that race.

Voter ID cards have incorrect addresses on them as well. Tiffany Shedd told the Arizona Free News when she received her voter ID card it had an address of Casa Grande, AZ. She doesn’t live in Casa Grande. She lives in Eloy, AZ. It is a problem for Shedd since is running for State Attorney General.

The coming mid-term elections will determine the fate of our country for a long time to come. Polls indicate a tidal wave of red sweeping Democrats out of office. However, if there is anything the 2020 election can tell us is, that rules don’t apply and anything can happen.