A mother and son face felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from an investigation into ballot tampering at a West Scranton polling place during the Nov. 4 municipal election.<\/p>\n
The Lackawanna County district attorney\u2019s office charged Kathie Sico, 67, and Michael Sico, 46, both of 305 Chestnut St., Dunmore. The probe began after the county Bureau of Elections received a report from a voter who alleged they were handed a ballot with Kathie Sico\u2019s name already written in for judge of election for Scranton Ward 6 Precinct 1.<\/p>\n
The election bureau referred the complaint about the incident, which occurred at the Jackson Heights polling place, to the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Kathie Sico was working as the assigned judge of election for Scranton 6-1 during the municipal election.<\/p>\n
Of 141 ballots cast on Election Day, 35 had the name Kathie Sico written in the sections for judge of election and\/or inspector of election. Two of five \u201cspoiled,\u201d or discarded ballots, also had her name written in for judge of election, charging documents note.<\/p>\n
In an interview Wednesday at the DA\u2019s office, Sico admitted to writing her own name on two ballots.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe stated that she had done so because someone had asked her to and then someone else came and took the ballot instead,\u201d county Detective Colleen Catanese wrote in an affidavit of probable cause. \u201cShe went on to say that she thinks her son wrote on a couple as people were standing there asking them how to spell her last name.\u201d<\/p>\n
During her interview, Kathie Sico denied prewriting her name on any ballots but said if she did, she didn\u2019t remember, per the charging documents.<\/p>\n
She \u201cstated that she knows it looks like voter fraud, but she has had so much going on the past couple weeks with her medical condition that she didn\u2019t even think,\u201d the affidavit notes.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Brian Gallagher confirmed Friday that his office issued arrest warrants for the mother and son. He expects them to turn themselves in early next week.<\/p>\n
Gallagher stressed the judge of election race was the only one affected. There were no candidates on the ballot for that position in Scranton 6-1.<\/p>\n
Sico wouldn\u2019t be able to hold the elected position because she lives in Dunmore, he said.<\/p>\n
Both Kathie and Michael Sico face felony charges of fraud by election officers and interference with primaries\/elections, respectively, as well as related misdemeanor counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother and son face felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from an investigation into ballot tampering at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[22510,22513,22511,22509,178,180,179,22512,5554],"class_list":{"0":"post-36499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-ballot-tampering","9":"tag-county-district-attorney","10":"tag-kathie-sico","11":"tag-michael-sico","12":"tag-scranton","13":"tag-scranton-headlines","14":"tag-scranton-news","15":"tag-scranton-ward","16":"tag-west-scranton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36499","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=36499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}