A 25-year-old Minneapolis man has been sentenced to 90 days in the workhouse after admitting that he helped people submit absentee ballots that were fraudulently cast in 2018, then ultimately purged and never cast anew.
Minneapolis man sentenced to 90 days in workhouse for helping people cast fraudulent ballots in 2018
A jury trial had been scheduled for May 23.
April 25, 2022 at 2:30PM
Abdihakim A. Essa pleaded guilty in Hennepin County District Court to four of 13 counts of intentionally making or signing a false certificate in the submission of the absentee ballots during a few weeks' time in the summer.
Along with time in the workhouse, Essa's sentence also includes a ban on registering to vote or voting until his two years of probation have passed.
Essa told a suspicious election worker in the Hennepin County Government Center that he was a campaign worker and signing his father's name as a witness on the ballots, according to the charges. The campaign was not specified in the charges.
A jury trial before Judge Juan Hoyos had been scheduled for May 23.
Essa is a legal U.S. resident but reportedly explained that the forgeries were necessary because he's not a citizen, but his father was a citizen and registered to vote, both requirements for witnessing absentee ballots.
The scheme unraveled on July 30, 2018, more than a month after he signed the first suspicious ballot. Essa arrived at the voting area in the government center and two election workers recognized him from several other visits in previous weeks. Acting as a helper, Essa had a woman with him who was seeking to register to vote. She did not have the proper identification and was told to come back with the correct information.
The woman returned but had someone else help her. The address on her identification didn't match the address she presented initially. The workers decided to find Essa and located him on the government center's ground level, and that's when he explained that he was forging his father's name on other peoples' absentee ballot submissions.
The people who cast those votes were notified in writing that their ballots were rejected, and they were invited to vote again. None did so.
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