NC woman sentenced for encouraging boyfriend to vote

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, North Carolina. It’s a strategy devised by President Donald Trump and other Republicans, The Washington Post reported this month.

Paige was arrested in August, on the same day as the man she had helped vote, Guadalupe Espinosa-pena, a green-card holder originally from Mexico. At the time, she told him he should vote “if he wanted his voice to be heard,” a news release from Higdon’s office said.

On the voter registration card she helped him fill out, they left a question about citizenship unanswered, the release said. Paige told investigators she then submitted the form to the Board of Elections for processing. At some point someone erroneously checked the citizenship question “Yes,” so Espinosa was registered to vote, Higdon’s office says.

During her sentencing Thursday, Paige told the court she did not know that Espinosa-pena could not lawfully vote.

Paige’s lawyer, James Todd Jr., a federal public defender, told the court that the manual given to poll workers had only one relevant mention of citizenship under “reasons for a voter challenge,” at the very end.

Legal experts described Paige’s prosecution as unusual. But it was part of a sweep led by Higdon’s office in which 20 immigrants were arrested on the suspicion of voting illegally.

“I can’t remember having anything ever to do with any voting issues or voting fraud,” said Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor. “Somebody has to go out of their way to look into that.”