A county supervisor in Virginia has been accused of dozens of counts of voter fraud in a case in which prosecutors allege he showed up at the homes of voters, with absentee ballot applications and ballots, to ensure he would have their vote.
According to WJHL a grand jury indicted Knox District Supervisor for Buchanan County Trey Adkins on 82 felony charges.
Those charges include 34 counts of false statement – election fraud, 11 counts of absentee voting procedure violations, 11 counts of forgery of a public record, 3 counts of conspiracy to make a false statement – election fraud, and more.
WND reported that Sherry Lynn Bailey was also indicted, who is Adkins’ aunt, and allegedly took part in the scheme too. Bailey is facing multiple counts of false statement – election fraud, conspiracy and forgery of a public record.
Adkins was under investigation by Virginia State Police for over two years. Authorities said they would have little further to release before a trial.
“The Rules of Professional Conduct prevents any lawyer participating in the prosecution of a criminal matter that may be tried to a jury from making an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or should know will have a likelihood of interfering with the fairness of a trial by jury,” prosecutors released in a statement.
National File reported the grand jury alleged “Adkins has relied on an illegal absentee vote harvesting scheme since he was first elected to public office in 2011, repeating the process in his 2015 and 2019 bids for re-election.”
The report said, “Investigations have shown that the scheme included hundreds of absentee ballots per election cycle and Adkins, with the help of his aunt, is said to have personally run the operation, showing up at the homes of voters himself with absentee applications and ballots to ensure he would have their vote.”
The report noted Buchanan County is a small community, and the “margin of victory” in the elections was usually within a couple hundred votes.
In a statement, Adkins claimed, “It went on 10 years ago at one of my prior elections, my first election that I won, uh, you know, voters that voted absentee got harassed and asked various questions and had a target on their back.”
He said he won’t be stepping down from office.
