A REPUBLICAN’S VOTER FRAUD STUNT BACKFIRES

By Akin Ojumu

Donald Kirk Hartle of Las Vegas, Nevada, is a 55-year-old registered Republican. He voted for Donald Trump in the November 2020 presidential elections. His wife, Rosemarie Hartle, died in 2017 from breast cancer. She was 52 years old.

Following last year’s general election, Kirk Hartle went public with the allegation that someone had requested a mail-in ballot in the name of his late wife, forged her signature, and cast the ballot in the presidential election. In an interview with one of the local news outlets in Nevada, Hartle expressed his disgust that someone would impersonate his wife and vote in her name. “That’s pretty sickening to me, to be honest with you. It certainly brings up a lot of discomfort,” he said.

Waiving Donald Hartle’s allegation as evidence of voter fraud in the November 2020 general election, the Nevada State Republican Party, the National Republican Party, the Trump Campaign, and conservatives of all stripes went ballistic. The right-wing newspapers, radio and television stations, church services, and social media sewers were filled with stories of voter fraud, citing Kirk Hartle’s story as an irrefutable proof that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Fast forward October 2021. Lo and behold, the whole thing was a cock and bull story – a total BS. It was Donald Kirk Hartle himself who requested a mail-in ballot in his late wife’s name, forged his wife’s signature, and cast the ballot in her name. This MAGA fanatic purposely committed voter fraud to help elect Donald Trump, lied about it that someone else voted in his wife’s name, and then used that as evidence to further perpetuate the false narrative of widespread voter fraud in the election.

On October 21, 2021, the Nevada Attorney General, Aaron D. Ford announced that Donald Kirk Hartle has been charged with two counts of voter fraud crimes in relation to the 2020 general election: voting using the name of another person and voting more than once at the same election, both of which are felonies. According to the complaint, “On or between October 26, 2020 and October 30, 2020, the defendant voted twice, including once in the name of Rosemarie Hartle.”

Donald Kirk Hartle subsequently entered a guilty plea and was sentenced on Tuesday, November 16th to probation for his crimes. He was also fined $2,000 as part of the plea bargain. In pronouncing the sentence, the trial judge, Carli Kierny, told Hartle, “Ultimately to me, this seems like a cheap political stunt that kind of backfired and shows that our voting system actually works because you were ultimately caught.”