Ballots were bought and sold in the City of San Luis for years, often in front of witnesses and often by perpetrators with no fear of prosecution. That is the indisputable fact confirmed in public records obtained from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
But those records also confirm something deeper – that the unrestrained illegal election activity has denied citizens the opportunity to have a voice in the community’s future. It is a harm which will take a long time to heal, according to some people who tried to call attention to the problem in the past.
The San Luis community will eventually move forward once the election fraud ring leaders are prosecuted, according to David Lara, who first went public about illegal ballot activity in the Yuma County border city way back in 2010.
“The trust will resume when the community sees people going to jail,” Lara told Arizona Daily Independent. “They want justice!”
During the August 2020 Primary Election, Lara was involved with a plan during the August 2020 election for his friend Gary Snyder to set up a video camera outside a San Luis polling place. The men have said they hoped to obtain evidence proving ballot harvesting was occurring.
Lara points out that the top three vote-getters in the 2020 race for San Luis city council were separated by only 110 votes. Which means being able to manipulate a few dozen or even a few hundred ballots can make the difference in winning or losing, he noted.
One scene Snyder recorded led to the well-publicized indictment of Alma Yadira Juarez and Guillermina Fuentes, a former San Luis mayor and a school board member. Both accepted plea deals earlier this year for one count of Ballot Abuse and are awaiting sentencing next month by Judge Bruce Nelson of the Yuma County Superior Court.
A review of the investigatory reports into election fraud within San Luis shows the possibility exists for additional indictments. It is something Lara believes many in community want to see, as two indictments bring “only some comfort,” he says.
“We have a long way to go,” Lara added.
Ballot harvesting is often described as the collection of someone’s voted ballot to be turned in for tabulation. However, harvesting of a ballot frequently involves much more nefarious activity, which is why it calls for felony prosecution under Arizona Revised Statute 16-1005, titled as Ballot Abuse.
Prior to January 2016, it was already a Class 5 felony in Arizona for a person to knowingly mark someone else’s ballot or ballot envelope “with the intent to fix an election.” It was also illegal under ARS 16-1005 to offer or provide consideration to acquire an early ballot, and for anyone “to receive or agree to receive any consideration in exchange for a voted or unvoted ballot.”
Possessing a voted or unvoted ballot with the intent to sell it to another person was also a Class 5 felony, as was knowingly soliciting the collection of voted or unvoted ballots by misrepresenting oneself as an election official.
But then-Rep. Michelle Urgenti-Rita understood the existing laws in 2016 left a gap which could be exploited to undermine election integrity. That is why she introduced House Bill 2023 to add ARS 16-1005 to make it a Class 6 felony to “knowingly collect voted or unvoted early ballots” without the legal authority to do so.
The Arizona House Elections Committee heard testimony prior to voting on HB2023. Among those who testified in 2016 was Sergio Arellano, who told lawmakers of concerns that elderly voters, particularly in Latino communities, were being taken advantage of by ballot harvesters.
Arellano also talked of unscrupulous ballot harvesters misrepresenting themselves to voters as an election official. And he spoke of the concerted effort by some to mislead voters about how to return ballots to be counted.
“What’s going on in these communities is a travesty because they are preying on these people,” he said at the 2016 hearing. The legislation was later signed by Gov. Doug Ducey.
Fast forward to 2020 when several San Luis residents were interviewed by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office as part of the investigation based on the video evidence obtained by Lara and Snyder.
Many of those interviews substantiated Arellano’s comments of misleading and even illegal activities, such as a woman who admitted paying for and receiving dozens of incomplete ballots while she was employed by Fuentes in 2016.
In other instances, voters reported people went door to door collecting ballots. Others claimed to have no voted in the August 2020 election but expressed no interest in pursuing the matter. Still others told investigators they remembered nothing about their voting experience even though the interviews occurred within weeks of the election.
Arellano is pleased to learn investigators confirmed the depth of the election fraud in San Luis. However, he is worried that the marginalization of voters in that community went on so long that it will be difficult to restore participation in elections, not to mention restoring confidence in the results.
“When we first told of our experience with ballot harvesters in our communities, we were met with skepticism. So it’s heartening to see that not only will the culprits pay, but this investigation should serve as a warning to anyone else who might consider exploiting voters,” said Sergio Arellano, a community leader and member of Conserva Mi Voto.
“Now with the growing number of Hispanics, who are realizing that the Republican Party has so much more to offer them that aligns with their values, it is really imperative that we protect those voters from unscrupulous operatives out there,” concluded Arellano.
As for the sentencing of Fuentes and Juarez, Nelson is obligated to place Juarez on probation as part of a plea deal which knocked down her felony indictment to a Class 1 misdemeanor. The judge could also include a short jail term as part of Juarez’ sentence.
Meanwhile, the State has asked Nelson to impose a one-year prison term for Fuentes for the Class 6 felony to which she pleaded guilty. If the judge opts for probation instead, it should include some initial jail time or house arrest, the attorney general’s office argues.
Nelson will conduct a hearing on Oct. 6 to allow Fuentes’ attorney to argue any mitigating factors in support of a probation-only sentence. Once Fuentes is sentenced then Nelson plans to immediately proceed to Juarez’s sentencing, he said last week.