Vegas Republican Learns Voter Fraud Is Not As Easy As Fox News Promised

Donald 'Kirk' Hartle claimed someone stole his dead wife's mail-in-ballot. That 'someone' was (allegedly!) him.

One of the grand ironies of rightwing media constantly pushing the narrative that it is extremely easy to commit voter fraud on both a personal and mass scale is that sometimes the very dimwits who believe that nonsense then go and try to commit voter fraud themselves, thinking they'll never get caught. Just ask Edward Snodgrass , a Republican Party official in Ohio, former Kansas GOP Rep. Steve Watkins , North Carolina Republican/ex-felon Leslie McRae Dowless , Bruce Bartman of Pennsylvania, Donald Trump and Kayleigh McEnany themselves, and so, so many more.

The latest to fall into this trap is Donald "Kirk" Hartle, whose whole story makes about as much sense as "Kirk" being a nickname for Donald.

After the November election, the Nevada GOP cited the fact that Hartle's wife, Rosemarie Hartle, "voted" in the 2020 election as proof that there was widespread election fraud in the state. This would have been quite the feat, as Rosemarie Hartle had been dead since 2017.

"Kirk was surprised to find that his late wife Rosemarie, a Republican, cast a ballot in this years election despite having passed away in 17'," they tweeted. "The media needs to understand we are finding concrete cases of voter irregularities that they must expose."

According to an interview Hartle did with "the media" following this publicity, a ballot for his deceased wife was apparently issued in October but never made it to his house. He suspected that someone had stolen it and sent it in themselves. Like, some nefarious person knew she was dead and hovered around their mailbox every day for a week or so on the off chance that a ballot got sent to her husband's house in her name. He said he was "sickened" just thinking about how it could have happened.

"Kirk," however, should not have been surprised or sickened at all, because as it turns out, he was the one who (allegedly) forged his deceased wife's signature on a mail-in ballot and sent it in. And now he faces two charges of voter fraud related to the 2020 election, for which he might get up to four years in prison and a fine of $5,000 for each charge.

Guess he's not too happy the media decided to "expose" this concrete case of election fraud that he literally got nothing out of in the end. Not only is he alleged to have committed voter fraud in hopes of stealing the election for Trump, he then (allegedly!) tried to pass his voter fraud off as someone else doing voter fraud to him, in hopes of stealing the election from Trump. And neither of those things worked out for him.

Perhaps by sheer coincidence, Hartle is (was?) the CFO of Ahern Rentals, a company associated with hosting coronavirus protocol violating rallies for Donald Trump. This very weekend, the Ahern Hotel will be the site of the the Patriot Voice "For God & Country Double Down" rally, billed as a "Great Awakening Weekend." The QAnon-adjacent event will feature such luminaries asRon and Jim Watkins, George Papadapoulos, the demon sperm lady, Jordan Sather, Sheriff David A. Clarke, The Kate Awakening, and a bunch of other kooks. Michael Flynn was supposed to speak, originally, but appears to have been booted from the line-up, perhaps because they think he's a Satanist now. 

For real, do not watch this clip if you get migraines or seizures. I actually only made it about halfway through.

 www.youtube.com 

Patrons will also be treated to the musical stylings of a guy named Bert Lynch, who wrote a song about the American flag and also needs to tell me where he found a mall that still has a Glamour Shots studio.

Hopefully Donald "Kirk" Hartle will get to enjoy this thrilling weekend full of people just as prone to making shit up as he is before he gets sent off to prison if he is found guilty of having committed this incredibly stupid and avoidable crime.

[ CBS 8 Las Vegas ]

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