PHOENIX – Two women in southwestern Arizona were indicted earlier this month for collecting a small number of ballots during the 2020 primary, officials said Wednesday.
A state grand jury on October 3 indicted Gloria Lopez Torres and Nadia Guadalupe Lizaraga Mayorquin, aka Nadia Buchanan, on charges of conspiracy and vote abuse. Arizona Attorney General’s Office Announced.
Both women are from San Luis, and Torres is a city councilor for the city of Yuma County.
Torres is accused Collected 7 votes from Lizarraga-Mayorquin. allegedly garnered at least one vote From another person, according to the indictment.
In Arizona, only a voter’s family member, household member, or caregiver can legally collect an early ballot. Retrieving a prohibited ballot is a class 6 felony.
Last week, two other San Luis women were convicted after previously pleading guilty in ballot-collection cases.
Guillermina Fuentes, a school board member who served as mayor of a small border town for several years in the 2000s, was sentenced to 30 days in prison and two years’ probation, after a judge found her responsible for her crimes. said he did not believe he accepted
Fuentes collected four completed vote-by-mail ballots from acquaintances and gave them to co-defendant Alma Juárez. At a table outside the polling station, she was urging people to vote for candidates for city council. Juarez carried them inside and put them in the ballot drop-boxes.
Juarez pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 12 months probation.
Republicans rallied that voter fraud could be rampant in the 2020 election, even though they rallied to paint Fuentes’ case as a symptom of the widespread voter fraud epidemic. But there are no indications beyond the small-town politics she was involved in.
In total, the incidents involving four San Luis women included 12 known voters in the August 2020 primary election.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
