GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. >> An Itasca County woman faces three felony charges after allegedly attempting to vote twice in the general election.

A criminal complaint says Danielle Christine Miller, 40, of rural Nashwauk, Minn., admitted to filling out and submitting an absentee ballot for her mother, who died in August. The fraudulent submission was flagged by election officials before it could be counted.

“The defendant admitted her deceased mother was an avid Donald Trump supporter and had wanted to vote for Trump in this election but had passed shortly before the absentee ballots were received,” according to the complaint filed last week in State District Court.

The Itasca County Auditor’s Office said it received sealed ballot envelopes containing signatures for Miller and her mother, Rose Marie Javorina, on Oct. 7. But Javorina had died Aug. 31, according to the Minnesota Vital Statistics death report, which the state provides monthly to election officials, so the matter was referred to the Itasca County Sheriff’s Office.

The complaint notes that the envelopes contain sections to be filled out by a voter and a witness. The voter must certify that they “meet all legal requirements to vote” as of Election Day, and the witness must provide their name and address and certify that the ballot was filled out by the voter.

Authorities said Miller was listed as the witness on Javorina’s ballot, and Javorina was listed as the witness on Miller’s. Both listed their street address as County Road 54, north of Nashwauk.

The sheriff’s office reviewed the signatures and determined they appeared similar, as well as matching the signature on Miller’s driver’s license.

Absentee ballots had been mailed Sept. 20, about three weeks after Javorina’s death.

In an interview, Miller allegedly admitted she filled out both ballots and falsified the witness sections, citing her late mother’s desire to vote for the Republican presidential nominee.

Miller is charged with two counts of signing a false certificate and one count of casting an illegal vote. She was given a summons to appear in court Dec. 4.

‘Flagged almost immediately’

Itasca County Attorney Jake Fauchald said the case shows election officials can catch problems and even rural counties have the resources and willingness to prosecute election fraud. Itasca County has about 45,000 residents.

“It was flagged almost immediately,” Fauchald said. “We do have ways of catching and flagging these fraudulent ballots and we’re going to do something about it so that those ballots don’t get through.” Fauchald said it’s the county’s first case involving voter fraud during the current election cycle.

Itasca County Auditor Austin Rohling said he hasn’t seen a “nefarious” case of someone casting a ballot for a dead person in his nearly two years in office. He said occasionally, someone fills out a ballot, returns it and then dies before Election Day. In that case, it isn’t counted under Minnesota law.

Sixteen other states prohibit counting ballots cast by someone who subsequently dies before the election, but 10 states specifically allow it. The law is silent in the rest of the country, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Rohling said that “strange things happen” in elections “on an extremely minor level,” but very few of those incidents involve intentional fraud.

“The system’s working the way it should,” Rohling said.

Trump has pushed false and misleading claims of widespread voter fraud since he first ran in 2016, particularly after losing the 2020 election. However, experts say cases are exceedingly rare and there is no evidence of systematic fraud.

After the 2020 election, the Associated Press found fewer than 475 possible instances among 25.5 million votes cast in six swing states. The conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database with just 1,561 “proven instances of voter fraud” nationwide over several decades — including 138 cases in Minnesota from 2004-22.

This report includes information from the Associated Press.