A California candidate who made “election integrity” part of her political message has been convicted of election fraud herself.
Gaea Edde Powell, a conservative political candidate in San Luis Obispo County, was found guilty by a jury on nine charges stemming from the 2022 and 2024 election cycles in Arroyo Grande.
The convictions include eight felonies and one misdemeanor, involving voter registration fraud, perjury, false nomination papers and fraudulent voting.
According to prosecutors, Powell actually lived outside the Arroyo Grande city limits while using an address inside the city to register and vote.
That distinction mattered for more than her ballot.
Powell was also running for mayor of Arroyo Grande, an office for which she was required to be properly registered within the jurisdiction.
Prosecutors said Powell used the city address on official documents and voted using ballots issued to that address in the November 2022, March 2024 and November 2024 elections.
The case carries another twist because Powell had publicly made election integrity part of her political message.
After unsuccessful campaigns for Arroyo Grande mayor, Powell ran in 2026 for San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder — the office responsible for administering elections in the county.
During that campaign, she advocated voter identification requirements, proof of citizenship and cleaning voter rolls.
She had even publicly warned about people voting in jurisdictions where they did not actually live.
A jury has now concluded that she violated election laws herself.
She's Not the First
Powell's case joins a list of documented cases in which Republican officials, candidates or Trump voters have been prosecuted for illegal voting or ballot-related crimes.
Bruce Bartman — Pennsylvania
Bruce Bartman pleaded guilty in 2021 after casting a 2020 ballot in the name of his mother, who had been dead since 2008.
Bartman used his deceased mother's driver's-license information to register her to vote and requested a mail ballot in her name.
He then used that ballot to cast a vote for Donald Trump.
Bartman also registered his deceased mother-in-law to vote, although prosecutors said he did not ultimately cast a ballot in her name.
He pleaded guilty to two felony perjury charges and one count of unlawful voting and received five years of probation.
Bartman later acknowledged what he had done and said he had consumed too much political propaganda.
Donald “Kirk” Hartle — Nevada
Donald Kirk Hartle's case became particularly notable because Republicans initially presented him as a victim of voter fraud.
After the 2020 election, Hartle publicly complained that someone had apparently cast a ballot belonging to his wife, Rosemarie, who had died in 2017.
The Nevada Republican Party cited the case while raising concerns about ballots being cast in the names of dead voters.
Investigators eventually determined who had cast Rosemarie's ballot:
Hartle.
The registered Republican pleaded guilty to voting more than once in the same election. He received probation and a $2,000 fine.
Terri Lynn Rote — Iowa
Terri Lynn Rote, a registered Republican and Trump supporter, was arrested after attempting to vote twice in the 2016 presidential election.
Rote had already cast an early ballot when she went to another voting location and attempted to cast another.
She told investigators she feared her first vote for Trump might somehow be changed to a vote for Hillary Clinton.
Rote eventually pleaded guilty to election misconduct.
Ralph Thurman — Pennsylvania
Ralph Thurman took a decidedly less subtle approach.
The registered Republican voted normally in the 2020 election and then asked election workers whether he could also vote for his son.
They told him no.
According to prosecutors, Thurman left — then returned less than an hour later wearing a hat and sunglasses.
He signed the voting record using his son's name and cast another ballot.
Poll workers recognized him.
Thurman pleaded guilty to repeat voting and received three years of probation.
Edward Snodgrass — Ohio
Edward Snodgrass was a Republican township trustee in Ohio when he submitted an absentee ballot belonging to his father during the 2020 election.
His father had died before the ballot was returned.
Snodgrass signed his father's name and mailed the ballot after also voting himself.
He ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor falsification charge and was sentenced to three days in jail and fined $500.
Steve Curtis — Colorado
Steve Curtis wasn't simply a Republican voter.
He was a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
Curtis had also publicly warned about voter fraud and suggested Democrats were responsible for it.
Then investigators discovered that someone had filled out and submitted his former wife's mail ballot during the 2016 election.
DNA evidence and handwriting analysis linked the ballot to Curtis.
A jury convicted him of voter fraud and forgery.
Curtis received four years of probation and 300 hours of community service.
Kim Phuong Taylor — Iowa
One of the largest documented cases involved an effort to help a Republican candidate win elections.
Kim Phuong Taylor was convicted in federal court on 52 counts related to a ballot-fraud operation during the 2020 elections.
Her husband, Jeremy Taylor, was running in the Republican primary for Iowa's 4th Congressional District and later successfully sought reelection to the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors.
Federal prosecutors proved that Kim Taylor submitted or caused others to submit dozens of voter registrations, absentee ballot requests and ballots containing false information.
She signed election documents without voters' permission and instructed others that they could sign documents for relatives who weren't present.
A federal jury convicted her of 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration and 23 counts of fraudulent voting.
She was sentenced to four months in prison, four months of home confinement and two years of supervised release.
Jason Schofield — New York
Jason Schofield was the Republican elections commissioner for Rensselaer County, New York — meaning his job involved administering elections.
Schofield admitted using voters' names and birth dates to submit 12 fraudulent absentee-ballot applications during the 2021 elections.
He falsely certified that he was the voter requesting each ballot.
Schofield also admitted taking possession of nine ballots while election records falsely indicated they had been mailed to the voters themselves.
He pleaded guilty to federal charges, resigned his position and was later sentenced to probation and fined.
Matthew Laiss — Pennsylvania and Florida
And the prosecutions haven't stopped.
Matthew Laiss was convicted by a federal jury in March 2026 after voting twice in the 2020 presidential election.
Laiss cast a mail ballot in Pennsylvania and then voted again in person in Florida.
Court records showed that both votes were for Donald Trump.
He was sentenced in July 2026 to six months of home confinement and three years of probation.
What These Cases Actually Show
None of these cases demonstrates widespread voter fraud capable of changing a presidential election.
In fact, they illustrate something different: individual cases of voter fraud are investigated, prosecuted and, when the evidence supports it, punished.
Election fraud is not exclusively Republican or Democratic. People associated with both parties have been prosecuted for election crimes.
But the cases involving Powell, Bartman, Hartle, Rote, Thurman, Snodgrass, Curtis, Taylor, Schofield and Laiss are particularly relevant to a political movement that has spent years portraying voter fraud as a pervasive threat to American elections.
The documented cases also provide a useful contrast with claims that millions of fraudulent votes are routinely cast.
Actual voter-fraud prosecutions tend to involve identifiable people, specific ballots, evidence, criminal charges and court proceedings.
And sometimes the people caught committing the fraud are the same people warning everyone else about it.