There was one case of a dead person voting. It was a Republican pretending to be his late mom.

Throughout the course of the 2020 Presidential elections, and during the campaign trail leading up to them, President Donald Trump complained about the possibility of voter fraud. He claimed that several people (namely Democrats) had posed as dead folks in order to vote for President-elect Joe Biden. An investigation into his claims has just been completed and there was, in fact, evidence of a dead person voting. Who was it? A Republican who attempted to vote as his late mother, Business Insider reports. Bruce Bartman from Pennsylvania has since been charged with unlawful voting and perjury by the Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.

Stollsteimer announced the charges in an official press release on Monday. The voter in question was arraigned on Friday and released on $100,000 bail. However, should Bartman, aged 70, be convicted of all charges, he could potentially face up to 19 years in prison. So far, this is the only known case of a "dead person voting," the District Attorney confirmed. He stated, "This is the only known case of a 'dead person' voting in our county, conspiracy theories notwithstanding. Further, the prompt prosecution of this case shows that law enforcement will continue to uphold our election laws whenever presented with actual evidence of fraud and that we will continue to investigate every allegation that that comes our way."

As per the prosecutors, Bartman registered two dead people as Republican voters earlier this year. In August, he registered his mother Elizabeth Bartman as well as his mother-in-law Elizabeth Weihman. To do this, he used the state's online voter registration portal. This permits residents to vote using their driving license number. Alternatively, they can also use the last four digits of their Social Security number. Bartman utilized his mother-in-law's Social Security number to register. The system flagged this as belonging to someone who had passed. Nonetheless, the software sent a letter addressed to her so as to confirm whether she was, in fact, alive.

Of course, the accused lied on this form and pretended to be Weihman. However, he ultimately did not request an absentee ballot in her name. In contrast, Bartman managed to successfully register his dead mother to vote and even cast a ballot for President Trump and other Republicans in her name. While the District Attorney's office received hundreds of calls about possible instances of voter fraud, Bartman's is the only instance in which a tip turned out to be true. First Assistant District Attorney Tanner Rouse told reporters, "In the hundreds of calls we received and the hundreds of visits we made, we only found one instance of malfeasance, and that was Mr. Bartman."

Unlike the President, Bartman has chosen to take responsibility for his actions, his lawyer Samuel Stretton conveyed. "In his political frustration, he chose to do something stupid," Stretton said. "And for that he is very sorry." Voter fraud is extremely rare in the United States, with only 193 convicted cases of voter fraud between 2000 and 2020 actually being registered. Therefore, Stollsteimer affirmed, "For all the conspiracy theorists out there, this case today does not represent widespread voter fraud. This case was evidence that one person committed voter fraud by casting an improper and illegal ballot."