{"id":11716,"date":"2025-10-22T21:05:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/11716\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T21:05:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:05:19","slug":"election-fraud-charges-bethlehem-man-allegedly-cast-votes-in-2-states-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/11716\/","title":{"rendered":"Election fraud charges: Bethlehem man allegedly cast votes in 2 states in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bethlehem<\/a> man has been indicted on election fraud charges after allegedly casting two votes in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n

Matthew Laiss, 31, is charged with one count felony voting more than once in a federal election and one count felony voter fraud.<\/p>\n

United States Attorney David Metcalf announced the charges on Friday. Katrina Young, the assistant federal defender assigned to Laiss, couldn\u2019t immediately be reached for comment Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Laiss resided and was legally registered to vote in Ottsville, Bucks County, until about August 2020, when he moved to Florida.<\/p>\n

After moving to Florida, he applied for and obtained a Florida driver\u2019s license and registered to vote in that state, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

In October 2020, the Bucks County Board of Elections mailed a ballot for the general election to Laiss\u2019 former address, where his parents still lived, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Laiss allegedly filled out and returned the mail-in ballot on Oct. 31, 2020. Then, on Nov. 3, he went to a polling location in Florida and again cast a vote, the indictment states.<\/p>\n

Both ballots cast a vote for the offices of U.S. president and U.S. vice president, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine ranging from $10,000 to $250,000.<\/p>\n

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of State. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Dubnoff.<\/p>\n

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.<\/p>\n

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bethlehem man has been indicted on election fraud charges after allegedly casting two votes in the 2020…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-11716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}