Judge said poll worker used her knowledge to try to evade detection.
Calling her a common criminal who abused her authority as a poll worker, a judge Wednesday sent a Cincinnati woman to prison for five years following her illegal voting conviction.
In a case watched around the country, Melowese Richardson was a Hamilton County poll worker from 1998 until her arrest earlier this year when she was charged with eight counts of illegal voting. In May, she accepted a plea deal and was convicted of four counts in exchange for the other four being dismissed.
“This is not a little thing. It’s not a minor thing. This is what our country’s based on — free elections,” Judge Robert Ruehlman of Hamilton County Common Pleas Court told Richardson, chastizing her for violating the principle of one person, one vote.
She was convicted of voting twice in the 2012 election and voting three times — in 2008, 2011 and 2012 — for her sister, Montez Richardson, who has been in a coma since 2003.
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