Since before the 2020 presidential election, voter fraud and election integrity have been key issues for Republican politicians. Now, it appears that at least one of those Republicans has a murky voting history.
According to documents obtained through an Associated Press public records request, Congressional candidate Matt Mowers of New Hampshire – who served as an aide to former President Donald Trump – voted in Republican primaries for two different states in 2016.
Documents obtained by the AP show that Mowers cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary when he served as the director of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign. Months later, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey’s Republican presidential primary. He used his parents’ address to re-register in the state.
Charlie Spies, a Republican election lawyer, contacted the AP at the request of Mowers’ campaign. He called the matter “silly,” and said double voting is “at worst a gray area” of the law and “not the sort of issue anybody would spend time on.”
While Mowers’ campaign declined to make him available for an interview, according to the AP, he said in a statement that he voted “in accordance with the law.”
“I was proud to work for President Trump as the GOP establishment was working to undermine his nomination and accepted a job with his campaign in 2016, registered to vote and cast my vote in accordance with the law, and served as an elected Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention,” said Mowers
Trump won the primary, and the party’s nomination before going on the win the 2016 presidential election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Although Trump lost the popular vote, he won the election due to the electoral college.
During the 2016 primary, The New York Times called the real estate mogul, who had never before held an elected office, a “polarizing, populist outsider.”
As Trump headed into the 2020 election against current President Joe Biden, he started promoting claims about election fraud. When Congress attempted to confirm Biden’s votes last year, Trump held a “Stop the Steal” rally to promote the claims ahead of a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has still not provided evidence to back up the claims, though he continues to promote them. This week, he mentioned the “RIGGED and STOLEN 2020 Presidential Election,” in an endorsement of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
In addition to Trump, Republicans at large have taken on election fraud as a key issue.
“With just one year until the 2022 midterm elections, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is running the most comprehensive legal strategy to date to ensure that elections are free, fair, and transparent,” said a statement from the Republican National Committee last November. “Despite Democrats’ attempts to delegitimize election integrity laws, voters are seeing the results of making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”
“Nothing is more important or sacred than each American’s right to vote. To protect that right, we need to ensure that elections are secure, and the integrity of our electoral systems is strong,” said Mower’s own campaign website. “Just like President Trump, Matt supports establishing effective voter ID laws, regular audits of elections to verify vote totals and provide every American citizen with the certainty that their vote counts.”
However, some legal experts cited by the AP believe that Mower’s 2016 primary votes could violate a federal law that prohibits voting more than once in “any general, special, or primary election.”
“What he has done is cast a vote in two different states for the election of a president, which on the face of it looks like he’s violated federal law,” said David Schultz, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who specializes in election law. “You get one bite at the voting apple.”
Even so, the AP said “there is little chance that Mowers could face prosecution,” since the statute of limitations has lapsed. There is also no history of anyone being prosecuted under this section of federal law and people could argue that primaries be considered as something other than a public election.
Furthermore, not all see the Mowers’ case as voter fraud.
“With the right set of facts, it could be construed as a violation, but it’s just not at all obvious to me that it is,” said Steven Huefner, an Ohio State University law school professor who specializes in election law. “It is a pretty murky question.”
Mark Meadows – a former North Carolina congressman who served as Trump’s chief of staff and helped plan the Jan. 6 rally – was registered to vote in two states before casting a ballot in the 2020 election. North Carolina state officials are investigating, said the AP.
Mowers is currently running in a Republican primary with a half-dozen candidates. The winner will go on to face Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Previously, Mowers earned Trump’s endorsement and the Republican nomination in 2020 before losing to Pappas.
Other Republican candidates in the primary have criticized Mowers for the 2016 primary votes.
Karoline Leavitt, a former Trump White House assistant press secretary, said Mowers owed voters “an honest answer,” and Gail Huff Brown said Republicans “cannot nominate someone who has engaged in voter fraud and expect to be taken seriously on the topic.”
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