A former election judge in Philadelphia has been convicted of several offenses after he accepted bribes to cast fraudulent ballots and certified false voting results during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections.
Domenick J. Demuro pleaded guilty on March 16 to conspiring to deprive persons of civil rights and of using interstate facilities in aid of bribery, according to the plea unsealed Thursday.
Demuro admitted that during his tenure as a municipal judge of elections, he accepted bribes in exchange for increasing ballots for certain candidates on voting machines. Demuro said that a political consultant paid him to add votes to the tally for candidates supported by the consultant, including candidates for federal, state, and local positions.
Demuro was paid between $300 and $5,000 per election by a consultant to add fraudulent votes to the tally, “Thereby diluting and distorting the ballots cast by actual voters.”
U.S. Attorney William McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said Demuro’s actions compromised the integrity of elections, and his office was taking measures to ensure election integrity during the current election cycle.
“Demuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear. This is utterly reprehensible conduct. The charges announced today do not erase what he did, but they do ensure that he is held to account for those actions,” he said.
Demuro’s fraudulent votes accounted for over 15% of the votes cast in 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Neither the consultant who paid Demuro nor the candidates for whom he cast fraudulent votes were named in court documents.
Demuro served as the Democratic chairman of Ward 39a in Philadelphia.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 30.
