An Ohio attorney who donated to Donald Trump's presidential campaign was convicted of election fraud for voting twice in the past two general elections.
James Saunders cast ballots in both Ohio and Florida in the 2020 presidential election lost by Trump and the 2022 midterm election, according to a ruling by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge Andrew Santoli, who ordered sheriff's deputies to take the lawyer straight to jail, reported Cleveland.com.
“It appears [Saunders] felt he was smarter than the system,” said Cuyahoga County prosecutor Michael O’Malley. “He was wrong.”
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The judge found the 56-year-old Saunders guilty of two counts of illegal voting, a fourth-degree felony and set a sentencing hearing for Aug. 26.
Trump blamed his 2020 election loss on widespread fraud, but federal and state election officials, as well as multiple courts across the nation, have found no evidence to support those claims and the former president has been charged in federal court and in Georgia with crimes related to his efforts to overturn the results.
Saunders, who made multiple donations to Trump and Republican campaign entities, claims he accidentally cast two ballots, but witnesses recall seeing him vote in person Oct. 21, 2020, in Cuyahoga County, while cellphone data shows he drove from his Virginia address on Nov. 1, 2020, and drove to Broward County and cast a ballot two days later on Election Day in Florida.
He voted by mail in Florida on Nov. 2, 2022, by mail and then voted in person Nov. 8, 2022, at his precinct in Shaker Heights.
