Two California men were indicted on 41 counts of voter fraud after allegedly submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications on behalf of homeless people, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro, 53, and Marcos Raul Arevalo, 34, face one count of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, eight counts of voter fraud, four counts of procuring and offering a false or forged instrument and four misdemeanor counts of interfering with the prompt transfer of a completed affidavit, according to the LA County District Attorney’s office.
Montenegro is also facing an additional 10 counts of voter fraud, seven counts of procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, two counts of perjury and five misdemeanor counts of interference with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit.
The district attorney’s office says Montenegro submitted more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications between July and October 2020. He’s also accused of “falsifying names, addresses and signatures on nomination papers under penalty of perjury to run for mayor in the city of Hawthorne.”
Montenegro faces a maximum sentence of 15 years and eight months in state prison, while Arevalo faces a maximum of seven years.
One has to wonder who were the men working for, and how many more operatives were doing the same thing? There are an estimated 151,000 homeless people in California – which means Montenegro and Arevalo would have covered over 5% of the state’s homeless population.
In February, nine people were charged with felonies for paying homeless people on Skid Row for their signatures on voter registration forms and official petitions.
The group was accused of offering one dollar and a cigarette per signature, according to NBC4.
“This is voter fraud, which we talk about, and we know it exists, but it isn’t exactly something that patrol officers deal with,” said LAPD Detective Meghan Aguilar.