October 24, 2025 11:03 AM UTC

Another Republican Believed In Vote Fraud So Much They Did Some

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• by: Colorado Pols

CBS4 Denver’s Olivia Young reports on one of the rarest stories in Colorado politics, despite the imagined specter of it taking place rampantly being an article of faith among election-denying MAGA Republicans: a real-life case of someone filling out a mail ballot not addressed to themselves, forging the signature of the registered voter that ballot was intended for, and submitting said ballot to be counted in the 2022 general election:

A Castle Rock woman faces up to three years in prison for voter fraud.

The 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office says Elizabeth Ann Davis illegally submitted a ballot for her deceased ex-husband and her living son in 2022.

They say the 61-year-old has an extensive criminal record, including prior convictions for forgery, theft, drug offenses and prostitution in both Florida and Colorado…

What we have here is a career criminal who either didn’t know or didn’t care about the steep penalty a felony vote fraud conviction carries in Colorado, or the checks and balances that exist to ensure ballots are only submitted by the registered voter whose name appears on the ballot:

Sheri Davis, the Douglas County Office of Clerk and Recorder, says it all started when someone in her office checked the voter record and realized that person was deceased.

“In Colorado, we have many checks and balances, and so that we can ensure the integrity of elections,” Davis said.

A serial forger who had almost certainly heard the complaints, from President Donald Trump on down to local Republicans, that Colorado’s mail ballot system was insecure, decided to risk her own freedom testing that belief. Last year, a Grand Junction postal worker conspired with a Republican conspiracy theorist to steal and complete almost 20 mail ballots, and were caught when the voters whose ballots had been stolen discovered that they had already been cast without their knowledge. The multiple layers of security to protect the integrity of mail ballots combined with the felony criminal penalties for attempt to commit vote fraud make it a ridiculous risk, with such a minimal gain that it is just rationally not worth trying.

Which is why it basically never happens:

The clerk’s office says this is only the second voter fraud conviction in Douglas County since 2020. [Pols emphasis]

“It’s not that common at all,” Davis said. “The good news is the processes work.”

The moral of the story, as always, is that Colorado’s mail ballot election system works. Colorado makes it easy to vote, and hard to cheat, resulting in one of the highest rates of voter participation in the country. Skeptical local Republicans became believers when they learned from their own experience that mail ballots are safe and accurate, and do not tilt the outcome either way.

And of course, there’s one other consistent data point linking these cases:

The district attorney’s office says she cast those ballots for the Republican Party in the 2022 general election. [Pols emphasis]

Vote fraud basically never happens. And when it does…it’s always a Republican.

Once again, the call is coming from inside the house.