Vanessa Rubio, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Washington, D.C., received a $500 slap on the wrist after being found to have voted twice in the 2020 presidential election – once in the District of Columbia and once in Maryland. Despite the Washington, D.C. Board of Elections (BOE) having known about Rubio – who also serves as the 1st Vice President of the Ward 4 Democrats – and five others having engaged in double voting in 2021, authorities dragged their feet for over two years.
The general counsel for the BOE did not meet with the six violators for a pre-conference hearing until August 2023, with the fines only being levied in December. Most states consider double voting a form of voter fraud and chargeable as a felony crime. District of Columbia law gives the BOE a degree of discretion, allowing them to either refer the charges for prosecution or fine the offenders up to $2,000.
A $500 penalty after two years of investigative or legal action has led some to wonder if the District government simply wished to brush the fraud incidents under the rug. In the time between when the fraud was revealed to the BOE, board staff held several public hearings and released at least two reports which stated they had found no voter irregularities in the 2020 election.
During an early December hearing before the BOE, Ms. Rubio told board members she was under the impression double voting was legal since the District of Columbia was not a state – allowing her to vote in both D.C. and Maryland elections. The question of D.C. statehood was only the final evolution of her excuse. She initially told the BOE she did not recall if she had double voted. When confronted with both signed ballots, she claimed she was never explicitly told she could not vote in both localities and thought there was a system in place to block those who broke the law.
show lessElected DC official fined $500 for committing voter fraud. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner @vanessarubio01 voted in DC & MD in 2020. She told @vote4dc she thought since DC isn’t a state, it was ok. 5 other voters each fined $100 for double voting in 2020 @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/OoPJyULUbo
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) December 18, 2023
