Matt Mowers, a former State Department official under the Trump administration who’s now running against Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) as a GOP challenger, cast ballots in two states in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries, records obtained by the Associated Press reveal.
Mowers first voted in New Hampshire’s primary via absentee ballot when he was working for ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) presidential campaign.
Then Mowers re-registered with his parents’ address to vote in his home state of New Jersey during the Garden State’s GOP primary four months later, according to the AP, in the face of a federal law that prohibits double-voting.
Christie had dropped out of the race at that point.
Mowers joined then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign in July before being brought to the new admin’s State Department after the election.
Like other pro-Trump Republicans running for office, Mowers has been trying to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the U.S. elections process by baselessly suggesting — if not loudly claiming — that elections are in danger of being corrupted by fraudsters.
For example, Mowers’ campaign lists “election integrity” as a top issue on its website and calls for sham election audits and tighter voter ID laws.
However, Mowers’ 2016 voting record is just another example of the hypocrisy of the broader Republican effort — revealing that the GOP’s purported concerns over election integrity are little more than a cover to push voting restrictions and promote Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was rigged.
Another particularly damning revelation came last month, when the New Yorker discovered that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows registered to vote in the 2020 election with an address of a mobile home in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina that he apparently never spent a night in.
Mowers: “I can prove there was voter fraud!”
IIRC every time a politician or a political operative is charged with voter fraud it is a republican. Seriously, every single time.
I’d respond by demanding “Lock him up” but it just seems so trite. Until the head of the snake is dealt with, these incidents of hypocrisy and lawlessness will continue. Sigh…
I am not diving into the specifics of NH and NJ residency requirements for voting eligibility, but it’s not crazy to think that this guy validly established residency in both states and actually was eligible to vote in both primaries. I know I have voted in one state’s caucus and another state’s general election, purely because my residence had changed in the interim.