East Liverpool woman sentenced for election fraud

LISBON — A 34-year-old East Liverpool woman, who worked for the Youngstown-based Ohio Organizing Collaborative, was sentenced today to 180 days in the Columbiana County jail for 14 felonies related to election fraud.

Rebecca Hammonds fraudulently registered more than three dozen people to vote. Hammonds pleaded guilty in January to 13 felony counts of making a false registration and one felony count of election falsification.

She was indicted in May 2016 after the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation found Hammonds had created false voter-registration documents while working to register unregistered voters in Columbiana County between September and October of 2015.

“The investigation found that the defendant falsely registered a number of Columbiana County residents, including some who were deceased, which is inexcusable,” said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

The Ohio Organizing Collaborative wasn’t investigated and cooperated with law enforcement officials in this case. OOC paid her to collect voter registrations, but fired her in October 2015 when the Columbiana County Board of Elections discovered the false records.