Voting booth
Rebecca Hammonds, 34, of East Liverpool, was sentenced to six months in jail Monday for fraudulently registering voters, including five dead people.
(Lisa DeJong, Plain Dealer file photo)
LISBON, Ohio -- A woman who pleaded guilty to falsely registering dozens of people to vote, including some who were dead, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison, reports say.
Rebecca Hammonds, 34, of East Liverpool, pleaded guilty last month to 13 felony counts of making a false registration and one felony count of election falsification, wcpo.com reports. All are fifth-degree felonies. She originally had faced 35 counts.
Five of the names on the false registrations were for deceased people.
According to wkbn.com, the fraudulent registrations occurred in the fall of 2015 in Columbiana County. Hammonds was a paid canvasser for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative.
Hammonds said she falsified the registrations because she was worried about losing her job if she didn't reach a quota set by the group, something the liberal-leaning organization denies.
"It was an hourly pay wage job and this defendant felt it was easier to sign up people falsely," Special Prosecutor Brian Deckert tells wkbn.com. "I think it just may have come down to human laziness."
Officials with the Columbiana County Board of Elections noticed discrepancies in the registrations, the Salem News reports. She was arrested after an investigation by the sheriff's department, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page.