Two years ago, Louis Koch, a Manhattan resident, asked the New York City Board of Elections to send him absentee ballots for the 2020 primaries and general elections, authorities said. .
He didn’t stop there.
Since then, Mr. Koch has obtained more than 100 absentee ballots with the names of others, including politicians, journalists and lawyers, without their permission, according to a criminal complaint. submitted to the Federal District Court.
But despite ordering all those ballots, Mr. Koch never cast them in an election. He told FBI agents who interviewed him last month that he collects ballots “as a hobby,” the lawsuit says.
The hobby can get expensive: Mr. Koch, 39, was arrested on July 8 and charged with using false information in voting and identity theft. He was released on a $250,000 bond, pending further legal proceedings.
The arrest comes as election fraud allegations continue to polarize US politics, with false claims being spread by former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters. Studies show that voter fraud is actually really rare in U.S.A.
Even if Mr. Koch’s alleged aim is not to sway an election rather than deliver a somewhat unconventional mandate for celebrity ballots, that presents a flaw. in how to provide absentee ballots in New York.
According to the complaint, Mr. Koch applied for an absentee ballot by entering the victim’s name, date of birth, county of residence and zip code on the election board’s website. He then directed that ballots be mailed to his apartment in Manhattan and a single-family home in Tenafly, NJ, the lawsuit said.
Under the board’s current system, the lawsuit says, a potential voter can have an absentee ballot mailed to an address other than the claimant’s as long as they provide personally identifiable information. of voters.
At the end of May, the lawsuit said, absentee ballots for several current and former politicians from New York were requested from the board, and mailed to Manhattan and New York addresses. Mr. Koch’s Tenafly.
The Election Board, in its review of its records, identified at least 95 additional absentee ballot requests in the last week of May, which were filed on behalf of others, including “famous politicians, media personalities and lawyers,” the lawsuit said.
Vincent M. Ignizio, deputy executive director of the electoral commission, said Mr. Koch’s activities were discovered in early June. The campaign team of a state official who is running for re-election told the panel that the candidate’s name had been found on the list of people who had requested an absentee ballot.
But the candidate did not ask, Mr. Ignizio said. Authorities have not released the identities of whom prosecutors say Koch obtained the ballots.
The panel has begun an investigation, he said, and referred its findings to the US attorney’s office in Manhattan.
“We take ballot security very seriously,” said Mr. Ignizio. “We are proud to have discovered a potential vulnerability and we will continue to tighten the process to ensure that security is paramount.”
On June 30, the FBI conducted a search of Koch’s addresses, the lawsuit said. In his Manhattan apartment, agents found more than 100 absentee ballots bearing the names of others, which had been issued by New York, California, and Washington, DC, for various elections, including including the June 28 primary election in New York.
At Tenafly’s residence, agents searched Koch’s childhood bedroom and seized additional such ballots, the lawsuit said.
The number of absentee votes cast in New York City has varied in recent years, reaching nearly 684,000 in the November 2020 general election, in which President Biden defeated Mr. Trump; and down to 83,000 in the general election a year later, when Eric Adams was elected mayor.
Mr Ignizio said the board’s investigation found that no absentee ballots in which Mr Koch allegedly took the names of others were cast in any election. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office, declined to comment. According to the election board’s public records, Mr. Koch was registered as a Democrat.
Koch’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment on behalf of his client. Mr. Koch was unavailable for comment, a family member said.
According to the complaint, Koch, after giving up his Miranda rights, told FBI agents that he had ordered ballots in someone else’s name since at least 2020, using personally identifiable information. which he obtained from public sources.
At one point last year, he said, a relative living in the Tenafly home who knew he had obtained the ballots advised him to stop, according to the complaint.
“Koch understood it was ‘foolish’ to continue ordering ballots, but he continued to do so anyway,” the lawsuit says.
When U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Figueredo agreed to release Mr. Koch on bail, she imposed several conditions, including one that was consistent with the charges in his case.
He cannot order an absentee vote for himself or anyone else – for any national, state or local election.
Alain Delaquérière contribution research.
