Attorney General Charges Four McCotter Staffers In Petition Scam

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced election fraud charges this morning against four staffers from former Rep. Thad McCotter’s reelection campaign. Schuette says the staffers submitted fraudulent petition signatures in an effort to get their candidate on the ballot.

He called the effort to fake petitions a “cut and paste job that would make an elementary art teacher cringe.”

The Attorney General also said evidence suggests that Team McCotter may have submitted dummy petitions as far back as 2006.

“There’s been a pattern of conduct of dummying up these petitions for a long time,” Schuette said.

After sorting through “hundreds of documents” and interviewing 75 witnesses, the Attorney General’s office charged Don Yowchuang, Paul Seewald, Mary Melissa Turnbull, and Lorianne O’Brien with a broad range of felony and misdemeanor charges. Yowchuang faces the most charges, 17 in all including 10 counts of Election Law Forgery, a five-year felony.

Schuette says McCotter offered no supervision to his staffers.

“This is a case of a congressman being asleep at the switch,” he said.

According to Schuette, at present Michigan doesn’t require candidates to vouch for the authenticity of signatures.