Four Wake residents charged with voting twice

Friday, August 12, 2011

Tags:

local/state

WAKE COUNTY (WTVD) -- Authorities have charged four Wake County residents with voter fraud in connection with the last presidential election.

Twenty-six-year-old Kierra Fontae Leache of Pheiffer Drive in Raleigh, 46-year-old Shelia "Sheilia" Romona Hodges, also of Pheiffer Drive in Raleigh, and 25-year-old Brandon Earl McLean of Bethune Drive in Raleigh, allegedly cast two ballot votes in 2008.

All three are registered Democrats.

According to arrest warrants, Leache filed a no-excuse absentee application on Oct. 29, 2008, as well as voted at the polling place on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Raleigh on Nov. 4.

Leache later admitted to authorities that she did vote twice in the presidential election.

Hodges and McLean - who also is facing unrelated charges from this past June - both each participated in early voting at Chavis Heights Community Center in Raleigh and later voted on Election Day at their local fire department polling place, according to court documents.

They also admitted to the charges.

Authorities have not said if or how the suspects are connected to one another.

Arrest warrants for all three suspects note the date of offense as far back as March of 2010. All three have been placed under a $10,000 bond.

ABC11 has learned that the Wake Board of Elections uncovered the fraud and turned it over to the Wake County DA and got the SBI involved to investigate.

A fourth person, 54-year-old Lela Devonetta Murray of Edwards Mill Road in Raleigh, was also charged with voter registration fraud.

Authorities charge that she voted on Election Day 2010 as a transfer voter in one precinct and then voted on Election Day provisionally in another precinct. The reason given for the second vote was "wrong precinct."

Murray was held on $10,000 bond.

The election, held on Nov. 4, 2008, had presidential candidates Democrat Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain on the ballot.

Voter turnout for the 2008 election was at an all-time high within the last decade, with Obama receiving the most votes for a presidential candidate in American history.

In May 2008, during the Democratic presidential primaries in North Carolina, Obama won a significant margin of the state - outperforming former First Lady Hillary Clinton.

The next month, Obama secured the Democratic nomination for President.

Obama is currently campaigning for reelection in 2012.