Two women arrested Wednesday for attempting to cast over a dozen fraudulent ballots in Mesa County for the Nov. 5 election were trying to “test” the county’s voting signature verification process to see whether it would catch forged signatures, according to an arrest affidavit in the case.
Vicki Lyn Stuart, 64, and Salley Jane Maxedon (a.k.a. Smith), 60, face identity theft, attempt to influence a public servant and forgery charges in connection with the attempted voter fraud investigation in the county announced by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold late last month.
Prosecutors said that between Oct. 11 and Oct. 24, Stuart and Maxedon “conspired a plan to ‘test’ the voting signature system” to determine whether the county’s signature verification process would detect fraudulent ballots.
The plan included obtaining ballots, forging voter signatures, and then submitting those fraudulent ballots to the Mesa County Elections Department.
Stuart, a USPS mail carrier, was identified as a potential suspect after investigators from the DA’s office determined the ballots came from two different USPS mailbox “clusters” that can only be accessed by mail carriers, and that all mailing locations that returned fraudulent ballots “were on the same mail delivery route as the USPS Mail Carrier route for that area/subdivisions,” according to the affidavit.
When interviewed by DA investigators, Stuart initially denied stealing ballots and giving them to someone else who may have fraudulently submitted them, but fingerprint evidence connected at least one of the stolen ballots to Maxedon, who was contacted by investigators on Election Day, arresting documents show.
Maxedon admitted to investigators that she “falsely completed voting ballots which did not belong to her,” saying the ballots were provided by Stuart, a friend from the post office who she has known for about three years, and who she last spoke with on Nov. 3.
During the interview, Maxedon told DA investigators she obtained the stolen ballots from Stuart around the week of Oct. 11, when Mesa County mail-in ballots started arriving to people’s homes, the affidavit states.
Arresting documents show Maxedon told investigators Stuart gave her about six or seven stolen ballots shortly after, and that Stuart told her to fill them out so they could “test” the county’s voting signature verification process….