By Glenn Rolfe

DOVER — Claiming that nearly 1,200 dead people are recorded as having voted in the 2020 general election, Patriots for Delaware plans to file a formal complaint Monday against the state’s Department of Elections.

According to a press release from the Patriots organizations, the filing will claim that the department has failed to purge the state’s voter registration base of deceased voters.

Members of the group will discuss the complaint Monday at 3 p.m. outside the Department of Elections building, 905 S. Governors Ave., Dover. At the gathering, Patriots for Delaware plans to publicly release the list of 1,179 residents it claims voted Nov. 3, 2020, despite their being deceased.

Sen. Bryant Richardson, R-Seaford, finds this very alarming.

“Leading up to that particular election, we received calls and emails from constituents that a deceased spouse, neighbor, etc. had received an absentee ballot application,” he wrote in a letter he intends to send to legislative colleagues.

“While this detail does not prove voter fraud, it does raise concerns about the Department of Elections’ process regarding weeding out the state’s voter database and how accurate the information contained is.”

Sen. Dave Lawson, R-Marydel, agreed with Sen. Richardson.

“I find it disturbing, just the claim of that,” he said.

Any illegal or unqualified vote that has been counted as a legal one violates Delawareans’ right to a free and fair election by canceling out the legal votes from those still living, Patriots for Delaware contended in the release.

Formed in 2020 as a nonpartisan coalition with strong beliefs in constitutional values and family, Patriots for Delaware is calling on Attorney General Kathy Jennings and Election Commissioner Anthony Albence to conduct an immediate and full investigation into any potential voter fraud and provide Delawareans an explanation of how dead people were permitted to vote two years ago, the statement said.

Attempts to reach the Patriots for Delaware for additional comment this week were unsuccessful.

An email request for comment sent Wednesday morning to Mr. Albence received no response as of late Thursday afternoon.

According to Sen. Richardson, in June 2021, Sen. Dave Wilson, R-Lincoln; Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown; and Rep. Charles Postles, R-Milford, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 47. Co-sponsored by many Republican legislators, the proposal would have created a “task force that would have examined current laws and practices as it relates to keeping Delaware’s voter database up to date. The resolution failed to pass the Senate along party lines,” said Sen. Richardson.

“As has been displayed more than once in Delaware’s history, election outcomes are sometimes decided by just a few votes. Voting is our nation’s most treasured privilege,” he continued. “As such, preventing voter fraud should be a goal of every member of the Delaware General Assembly and for the Department of Elections. If the evidence the Patriots for Delaware reveals proves to be correct, then we believe steps to clean up the voter rolls must be taken immediately.”

Rep. Briggs King further explained the issue.

“One of the things that is extremely challenging is that, unless you take your name off the rolls — like you move and change your address — you stay on those rolls for at least two consecutive election cycles,” she said. “The reasonable person would think that when you die, the bureau of statistics or whomever does the death certificate would send it to the Department of Elections, and that would cause them to remove the name.

“Well, it doesn’t because I know from personal experience, (when) sending out happy birthday cards, then I am terribly embarrassed when I get the card back saying, ‘So-and-so died,’ because my voter rolls aren’t accurate.”

She explained how a deceased person could vote.

“If you send in your absentee ballot, a legitimate absentee ballot, and you die after you have sent that ballot in, that ballot still counts because you were alive when you cast that ballot,” she said. “I’m not saying that there is 1,100. I haven’t seen what the Patriots are going to report out or anything else, or how they came up with that number. We’ll see what comes out.”

Rep. Briggs King said she’s interested in determining if legitimate votes have been compromised.

“What everyone is looking for is, is there a pattern and practice that is used here to disenfranchise the legitimate vote?” she said. “That is the key thing here.”