Vanessa Rubio is either too dumb or too criminal to be an elected official in Washington, D.C.
Rubio, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in the District of Columbia’s Ward 4, was among six people who were fined by the D.C. Board of Elections on Friday for committing voter fraud. According to WRC-TV, she voted in two jurisdictions during the 2020 election.
Her excuse should be disqualifying — or, at the very least, D.C. voters should find it such.
As per WRC: “Rubio admitted she voted twice to the board, but said she didn’t think it was illegal because D.C. is not a state, according to the documents.”
Yes, that’s right: On Nov. 1, 2020, she voted in person in the state of Maryland. Then, on Nov. 3, she did the same thing in Washington, D.C.
Both Maryland and D.C., it’s worth noting, award electoral votes to presidential candidates despite the fact the latter isn’t a state; Maryland awards 10, Washington awards three.
Elected D.C. official — and five others — fined for voting in both D.C. and Maryland in 2020 https://t.co/YgQFklqKdX
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 18, 2023
While both are also reliably Democratic — D.C. is unarguably the easiest three electoral votes a Democrat could ever have, with George McGovern and Walter Mondale comfortably winning it in both 1972 and 1984, respectively, despite both Democratic nominees losing 49 states in landslide losses — that doesn’t make it any more legal.
Do you think the penalties for voter fraud should be harsher?
A memorandum from the District of Columbia Board of Elections reported that its Office of General Counsel “became aware of evidence” via the Election Registration Information Center — which tracks voter registration across jurisdictions to guard against double-voting, among other things — that Rubio had cast ballots in both Maryland and D.C. in 2020.
“The signatures contained on the documents reviewed, all of which were associated with an individual named Vanessa Rubio, appeared to be consistent with one another and with other signatures associated with the voter in the Board’s records,” the memo stated.
This led to a pre-hearing conference with Rubio, at which she initially “stated that she did vote in person in DC in the 2020 GE, but that she did not recall voting in MD during that election.
“After being presented with the image of a Maryland Voter Authority Card … from the 2020 Presidential General Election that bore a signature, Ms. Rubio acknowledged that the signature was hers, albeit a ‘sloppier’ version thereof. She further acknowledged that she owned the property indicated on the MD VAC.
“She further stated that it ‘is possible that she voted in MD in the 2020 GE, though she ‘d[id] not recall doing so.’ She also acknowledged that she has voted in MD in the past, although she maintains that she does not recall voting there in the 2020 GE. Finally, Ms. Rubio stated that it was ‘never really stated that you are not able to vote in more than one state,’ and thought if one attempted to do so, the ‘system’ would block one from doing so.”
Spoken like a true Democrat! Rubio was fined $500 while the other five individuals were fined $100 for their infractions.
Elected 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
“With regard to Ms. Rubio’s defense, we also take judicial notice of the fact that Ms. Rubio is an elected official,” the Board of Elections said while explaining the tougher fine. “Accordingly, we see fit to hold her to a higher standard than other voters.”
It’s worth noting that, like so many other politicians in Washington, D.C. — whether elected locally or federally — it’s difficult to tell whether she’s this stupid or merely thinks her constituents are. However, if the results of a recent Rasmussen/Heartland Institute poll are any indication, she’s hardly alone.
The poll, released three days before Rubio’s sentence, found that “17 percent of mail-in voters say that in the 2020 election, they cast a ballot in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident.”
Overall, 21 percent of those polled who used mail-in ballots admitted to having committed some form of fraud in the poll.
And, while Rubio’s case involved in-person voting, she’s also not the only politician to be ensnared in a voting fraud case regarding the 2020 election. Last month, Kim Phuong Taylor — the wife of Woodbury County, Iowa Supervisor Jeremy Taylor, a former U.S. representative — was convicted on all 52 counts in a scheme that the Department of Justice said involved “generating votes” during the vote three years ago.
“Prosecutors were able to prove that Kim Taylor illegally filled out voting materials, failed to translate warnings that her victims could not vote for her family members and forged signatures on voting affidavits,” KTIV reported.
Taylor’s husband was a Republican, which arguably made it easier for President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice to pursue him. In both cases, however, the message was plain: Despite the protestations that 2020 was the “most secure [election] in American history,” voter fraud is far from isolated. Pretending it isn’t only makes Americans more skeptical.
