A former Bucks County man who voted twice for President Donald Trump in the 2020 election was sentenced Wednesday to six months of house arrest and three years of probation.
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Matthew Laiss was found guilty by a jury earlier this year of casting two ballots in the 2020 election: First by mail in Pennsylvania, where he’d once lived in Ottsville, and then again in person in Florida, where he was living at the time.
Laiss, 32, said in court Wednesday that his actions were “stupid” and a mistake. And his lawyer said Laiss never meant for both votes to actually count — that he wrongfully assumed election officials would identify he’d voted twice and only count one of his ballots.
“In hindsight, it wasn’t good judgment,” Laiss said.
Prosecutors, however, said they didn’t believe that, in part because they said Laiss misled FBI agents about his actions when he was confronted years later. And Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff said Laiss had shown a “striking” lack of remorse for what he did, repeatedly saying it was the result of his age or mental health at the time, as opposed to realizing he’d committed a crime.
“Mr. Laiss has not accepted ownership of what he did,” Dubnoff said.
U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Leeson, Jr. said Laiss’ crimes were serious and had affected “all citizens of this country.”
But he declined to send Laiss to prison, noting that Laiss had already lost his job as an insurance salesman as a result of the case, and that he’d have the felony conviction on his record for the rest of his life.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Laiss last year with crimes including voter fraud and voting more than once in a federal election.
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They said records showed that Laiss had filled out and returned a mail-in Pennsylvania ballot in October 2020. And less then a week later, they said, he went to a polling place in Florida and voted again.
Laiss later said in court documents that he voted twice for Trump. And as his case progressed toward trial, he sought to claim that his actions were covered by pardons Trump extended to people who tried to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won.
Leeson denied Laiss’ motion, and in March, Laiss, now a resident of Bethlehem, was found guilty by a federal jury in Allentown.
Prosecutors announced Laiss’ case alongside the indictment of a Philadelphia woman, Miya Pack, who was separately charged with voting twice in the 2020 election. She pleaded guilty last month and is awaiting sentencing.
Still, attorneys said cases involving people casting multiple ballots were relatively rare in eastern Pennsylvania. Laiss’ lawyer said the only other comparable case in the region that unfolded in recent years was that of Philip C. Pulley, a Philadelphia landlord who voted in the city, Montgomery County, and Florida in 2020 and 2022. He was also sentenced to probation.
Trump has nonetheless made frequently questionable or false statements about the prevalence of voter fraud, particularly in instances where his opponents or Democrats have won. Election officials and experts generally agree that voter fraud has not historically occurred at widespread rates or in ways that could lead to incorrect outcomes.
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