PHILADELPHIA, PA \u2014 A Bethlehem man was convicted Wednesday of federal election fraud charges for voting twice in the 2020 presidential election, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced.<\/p>\n
Matthew Laiss, 32, was found guilty at trial on one count of voting more than once in a federal election and one count of voter fraud.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors said Laiss had been registered to vote in Ottsville, Bucks County, from at least October 2012 through August 2020.<\/p>\n
Court filings show that Laiss moved his primary residence in August 2020 to Frostproof, Florida, where he obtained a Florida driver\u2019s license and registered to vote.<\/p>\n
In October 2020, the Bucks County Board of Elections mailed a ballot for the November general election to Laiss\u2019s former address in Ottsville, where his parents continued to live.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Laiss completed and returned the Pennsylvania mail-in ballot on or about October 31, 2020, casting a vote for president and vice president.<\/p>\n
Authorities said he then voted again in person on November 3, 2020, at a polling location in or near Frostproof, Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cCasting a ballot in more than one jurisdiction undermines public trust and dilutes the votes of others,\u201d Metcalf said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Laiss is scheduled to be sentenced June 10, 2026.<\/p>\n
He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 for each charge.<\/p>\n
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Pennsylvania Department of State.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff is prosecuting the case, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
For the latest news on everything happening in Chester County and the surrounding area, be sure to follow MyChesCo on Google News<\/a> and MSN<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, PA \u2014 A Bethlehem man was convicted Wednesday of federal election fraud charges for voting twice in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,22461,2955,60617,60618],"class_list":["post-130507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-court-decisions","tag-election-fraud","tag-federal-crime","tag-voter-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130507","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=130507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}