The leading Republican candidate looking to replace Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire might have violated federal voting laws by casting two ballots in the 2016 primary election.
Associated Press is reporting that voting records show that Matt Mowers, who was a senior adviser in Donald Trump’s administration and later held a State Department post, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire’s 2016 presidential primary. At the time, Mowers was the director of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state.
But just four months later, after Christie’s campaign ended, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey’s Republican presidential primary, using his parents’ address to re-register in his home state, documents The Associated Press obtained through a public records request show.
Legal experts say Mowers’ actions could violate a federal law that prohibits “voting more than once” in “any general, special, or primary election.” That includes casting a ballot in separate jurisdictions “for an election to the same candidacy or office.” That puts Mowers in an awkward spot at a time when much of his party has embraced the former president’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and has pushed for restrictive new election laws.
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“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.”
Mowers is just the latest former Trump administration official to draw scrutiny for potentially violating voting laws.
It recently was reported that Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina congressman who served as former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, was registered in two states and listed a mobile home he did not own — and may never have visited — as his legal residence weeks before casting a ballot in the 2020 election.