Georgia Man Arrested On New Hampshire Voter Fraud Charge

CONCORD, NH — A man accused of felony wrongful voting in New Hampshire was arrested Thursday in Georgia.

Michael Lasean Lewis, 47, of Atlanta, GA, was arrested by transit police after a warrant was issued by the Merrimack County Superior Court in January 2019 based on an investigation by New Hampshire Attorney General's Office.

Lewis is accused of voting on Nov. 8, 2016, in Hooksett even though he was not qualified to vote in the town "because he was not domiciled there for voting purposes," according to Kate Giaquinto, the director of communications for the attorney general's office.

Lewis was indicted by a grand jury in December 2018. He will be arraigned in Georgia and then extradited to New Hampshire to face the charge.

According to documents compiled by Ed Naile of the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers in December 2016 and January 2017, Lewis was accused of filling out a same-day registration ballot, without identification, at Hooksett's polling location just before the polls closed on Nov. 8, 2016.

About 10 minutes after voting, he was arrested by police for driving without a valid license, he told Patch. Naile said he received a tip about the voting accusation after Lewis was arrested by police. A witness accused him of "rummaging" through a vehicle at the polling location which led to police being called, Naile said.

Naile made a right-to-know request for documents in the Lewis case in December 2016. According to police, Lewis gave a Miami, Florida, address, that is actually the location of a Salvation Army in that city. He was driving a vehicle with Massachusetts plates, police records said. After the arrest, Lewis gave a second and different address, in Miami Beach, on bail paperwork, Naile said.

According to search records, the phone number Lewis listed was connected to an Atlanta address. In 2017, the Dade County Supervisor of Elections website showed Lewis as an active voter at the Miami Beach address. Naile said state driving records in Florida also showed him with an active Florida license.

Naile, a registered Democrat, has been tracking potential vote fraud cases in New Hampshire for years and often, handed over information he had gathered to both the Secretary of State's Office and the AG's Office. About three and half years ago, after being frustrated by the lack of progress and what he called "true investigations" into vote fraud and other election cases, like the Carl Gibson voter suppression case, he stopped submitting information. Naile wrote about the Lewis case on the taxpayer's website.

This is the third arrest or indictment of people on vote fraud charges coming out of the attorney general's office during the past four weeks. The other cases include Vincent Marzello of West Lebanon, who was arrested in September on multiple charges after voting twice in 2016 and signing up to be a poll watcher for state Democrats for 2020, and Mary Kate Lowndes, a Peace Corps director from Washington, D.C., who was indicted in September, accused of registering to vote at a shopping center in 2016 and voting in 2018.

Editor's note: This post was derived from information supplied by the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office and does not indicate a conviction. This link explains the removal request process for New Hampshire Patch police reports.

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