Elected official among six D.C. residents fined for double voting in 2020

A local official in Washington, D.C., was one of six people fined this month by the city’s board of elections for double voting in the 2020 general election.

Vanessa Rubio, an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, was fined $500 after the District of Columbia Board of Elections found that she’d voted in both D.C. and Maryland.

The panel said she had told them that “she did vote in person in DC in the 2020 [general election], but that she did not recall voting” in Maryland. After being shown her signature on a voting card from Maryland, Rubio “acknowledged that the signature was hers, albeit a ‘sloppier’ version” and said it was “possible” she voted there but didn’t “recall doing so.”

“Finally, Ms. Rubio stated that it was ‘never really stated that you are not able to vote in more than one state,’ and that she thought that if one attempted to do so, the ‘system’ would block one from doing so,” the board’s order said.

Rubio did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Neighborhood commissioners are elected to two-year terms. The post is nonpartisan and unpaid.

Five others were also found to have voted in D.C. and Maryland, all claiming to have done so by mistake. They were each fined $100.

Rubio, who was first elected in 2020 and re-elected last year, was fined a higher amount because as an elected official “we see fit to hold her to a higher standard than other voters,” the board said in its decision.

Despite claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 and 2020 presidential election by former President Donald Trump, election officials around the country have said voter fraud is so rare it’s statistically insignificant.