Grandmother sentenced

A 66-year-old woman from North Carolina was sentenced to two months in prison this week for encouraging her boyfriend to vote and helping him fill out his voter registration form, even though he was not eligible.

Denslo Allen Paige, a grandmother who works part time at Walmart and also does seasonal gigs as a poll worker, was sentenced to two months in federal prison and a $250 fine by Judge Louise Wood Flanagan after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting voting by a noncitizen. Had she gone to trial on those charges and lost, she faced a potential sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

She had been caught in an aggressive push by U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon Jr. to focus on the prosecution of noncitizens for voting, rather than the ballot-tampering allegations in Bladen County, N.C.

It is a strategy devised by President Donald Trump and other Republicans, The Washington Post reported earlier this month, “to portray illegal voting as a widespread phenomenon that threatens the integrity of American elections.”