Alleged ballot thieves arrested by District Attorney investigators

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Two women are behind bars in Mesa County today, accused of stealing Mesa County ballots, altering them, and fraudulently submitting them for counting.

59-year-old Sally Jane Maxedon and 64-year-old Vicki Lyn Stuart are both charged with identity theft, attempting to influence a public servant, and forgery for their involvement in an alleged scheme to “‘test’ the voting signature system for ballots utilized at elections,” according to the arrest affidavit. Their goal, according to the affidavit, was to see if the forged signatures would be caught by the verification process.

Documents state that victims are still being tracked down and confirmed, but there may be 20 or more victims of the alleged scheme.

The two women were tracked down due to the fact that several of the ballots that were allegedly forged fell along the same mail delivery route— a route that was confirmed to be temporarily assigned to Stuart. Documents also stated that Stuart was interviewed by DA Senior Investigator Rob Heil, where he confirmed that Stuart was the person who allegedly delivered the ballots on that route.

Investigators also found that Stuart‘s GPS location showed her at the known victim’s houses on October 12— the day when the affected ballots were supposed to be delivered. Maxedon’s fingerprints were also allegedly found on a ballot by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation— a ballot she would not normally have access to as investigators found that she was never an employee of the USPS or Mesa County Elections.

Arrest documents state that eventually, law enforcement contacted Maxedon at her home. During the following interview, Maxedon allegedly admitted that she completed ballots that were not hers. Initially, she claimed that she was provided the ballots by a man who worked at CBI who she “randomly met in a parking lot,” according to the affidavit. She claimed the man asked her to help test the voting system, to which Maxedon responded by filling out the ballots in her truck and returning them to the man. “[Maxedon] even hand drew a map of where she met the CBI man at Mesa Mall and [she] pointed out where [she] parked,” according to the affidavit.

However, she eventually admitted to investigators that she knew Stuart and that she was not being fully honest with the investigator, with documents stating that she was trying to protect Stuart. The affidavit states that Maxedon then admitted to the investigator that she obtained the ballots from Stuart right around the time when ballots began to arrive in Grand Junction mailboxes.

Stuart was contacted by law enforcement at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, and reportedly stated something akin to “You want to put me in prison just because I mishandled some mail?”

Mesa County Elections recently identified and successfully prevented fraudulent mail-in ballot attempts through our signature verification process. We immediately reported this to the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which led to two arrests today.

I am deeply grateful for the diligence and thorough efforts of the District Attorney’s Office in addressing this matter. I am proud our security measures are effective, and we will remain vigilant to safeguard the integrity of our elections.

I am committed to transparency and accountability at every step of the election process so that voters in Mesa County can have confidence that their ballots are secure.

Stuart and Maxedon are both currently being held in the Mesa County Detention Facility with open charges. Bond has not yet been set for either woman.