A Mesa County mail carrier and her friend were arrested on suspicion of identity theft and forgery after allegedly stealing at least 16 ballots and filling them out to “test” the voting signature system, the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
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Vicki Lyn Stuart, 64, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of 16 counts of identity theft and forgery and two counts of attempting to influence a public servant, all felonies, according to an arrest affidavit.
Sally Jane Maxedon, 56, was arrested on suspicion of six counts of identity theft and forgery and two counts of attempting to influence a public servant.
The district attorney’s office began investigating the case on Oct. 21 after several Mesa County residents contacted elections staff about their ballots being rejected for signature discrepancies despite never having voted, investigators wrote in an arrest affidavit.
Investigators found the mailboxes where ballots were stolen from were all on the same U.S. Postal Service mail route and Stuart was a substitute carrier for the route on Oct. 12, when ballots were delivered.
Stuart initially told investigators she did not deliver ballots to mailboxes if the name on the ballot didn’t match the name on the mailbox and returned “about 20 ballots” to a bin at the mail hub.
But the DA’s office later found a fingerprint on one of the forged ballots that matched to Maxedon, who did not work for USPS.
Maxedon initially denied that Stuart gave her the ballots, but later told investigators the pair came up with a plan to “test” Mesa County’s signature verification system for ballots.
“The stated desired outcome was for (Maxedon and Stuart) to determine if the signature verification process would detect if the forged signatures were not those of the known voter signatures on file with Elections,” investigators wrote in the affidavit.
Investigators believe there may be more than 20 people whose ballots were stolen, but 16 thefts were confirmed as of Tuesday, according to the affidavit.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
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