Nelson County man acquitted of voter fraud; he said he only wanted to test security

Correction: The original version of this story inaccurately said there were three
illegal voting cases in Virginia this year. It should have said three since 2022.

Despite national fears about voter fraud, it’s extremely rare. A case heard in Lovingston on Monday, one of three brought in Virginia since 2022, according to The Washington Post, ended with a jury finding not guilty a man accused of attempting to vote twice in the same election.

Shipman resident Richardson Carter Bell Jr., 67, who is known in Nelson County for driving a truck festooned with signs supporting former President Donald Trump and deriding President Joe Biden, maintained he merely was testing election security.

Bell voted early Nov. 4 in last year’s elections for the General Assembly and local races. On Nov. 7, 2023, Election Day, he went to his Shipman precinct and showed his ID to an election official, according to court testimony. When she entered him into the system, a yellow triangle came up with a message that said to call the chief precinct official and that his ballot had already been processed.

Sandra Collins was the poll worker who got the message. “While we were waiting for the chief, Mr. Bell asked if anything had come up, and said he’d already voted,” she testified. “He said he didn’t trust the system and wanted to see if it would let him vote again.”

Attempting to vote more than one time in the same election is a Class 6 felony in Virginia, which carries a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Daniel Rutherford took a dim view of Bell’s account, and noted that he was not authorized to test the system. The crime, Rutherford pointed out, is “attempting to vote twice, not voting twice.” 

In an interview with Virginia State Police on Feb. 8, Bell portrayed his second visit to the polls as a joke, according to the special agents who testified. In a recording of the interview, he said, “I was messing to see if they were gonna let me vote again to see what kind of fraud was going on.”

He told the agents, “But I went in and gave them my ID and then it showed up [that] I’d already voted.” He added, “So I was doing a little detective work.”

Bedford defense attorney Matthew Pack argued that Bell had no intent to vote a second time. He also suggested that registrar Jacqueline Britt was griped by Bell and his sign-covered truck, which he parked outside her office, and that she told the agents investigating the incident that he was a “rabble rouser,” a “nutcase,” was trying to “incite people,” and she wanted someone to “have a chat with him to get Bell to cool down.”

When shown a transcript of her interview with state police, Britt said she didn’t recall making those statements.

“Are we here because of a rabble rouser, because of an inciter?” asked prosecutor Rutherford. “We’re here because he tried to vote twice.”

He compared Bell’s testing of the voting system to pulling a fire alarm “to see if the sprinklers worked.”

Bell garnered media attention in 2022, when he drove his truck in the Lovingston Christmas parade with a sign bedecked with holiday lights and bearing the message, “Merry Christmas. Spend more, get less. From, Joe Biden.” Some attendees were upset and felt the parade was an inappropriate venue for political messaging. 

“I understand that,” Bell told ABC13. “Christmas parades are about Christ, you know, stuff like that, and giving and things like that and I’m giving my part,” he said, gesturing to his sign.

The jury deliberated for an hour and came back with a not guilty verdict. When the seven women and five men were polled about the verdict, Juror 12 said, “That’s not my verdict.”

Judge Michael Doucette sent the jury back to work on the verdict, and while they were out for about 10 minutes before coming back with a unanimous decision, Rutherford said he’d never seen a juror announce that he did not agree with the verdict. Juror 12 declined to comment after the jury was dismissed.

“I thought this was all a farce,” said Bell after the hearing. “They wanted to get me off the streets because of my signs. I was very worried.”

“Justice was done,” said his attorney, Pack. “The jury system works.”

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