A Georgia man was sentenced to 10 days in jail and must pay a $500 fine after pleading guilty to submitting signatures of dead people and signatures that didn’t match voter files to try to get a Republican congressional candidate on Colorado’s primary ballot in 2022.
A Denver District Court judge also ordered Jordahni Rimpel, 25, to submit letters of apology to the secretary of state and former congressional candidate Carl Andersen and repay $3,500 in costs, according to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which announced Rimpel’s sentence Monday.
“Access to the ballot in Colorado must reflect the will of voters, not fraud perpetrated by criminal actors,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “We will continue to take election fraud seriously and vigorously safeguard election integrity.”
Rimpel was one of six people charged by state prosecutors in June for gathering fake signatures for Andersen, who sought to qualify for the primary ballot for the 7th Congressional District. The scheme came to light after an unusually high number of the signatures gathered for Andersen were disqualified by the Secretary of State’s Office, the attorney general’s office said.
Andersen failed to make the ballot. Democrat Brittany Pettersen won the race that year.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office conducted the investigation into the signatures with district attorneys in Denver and Jefferson counties.
Investigators interviewed several people whose names appeared on signature petitions for Andersen who said they had never signed the petition, according to an arrest affidavit. Other signatures on the petition were from people who said they moved from Colorado before the petition was circulated.
Rimpel pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, and perjury, a misdemeanor, court records show. Under terms of the deal, the felony will be dismissed from Rimpel’s record after two years if he stays out of trouble.
He was one of six paid circulators employed by an Oregon-based petitioning firm, which was hired by the Carl Andersen for Congress campaign to gather the necessary 1,500 valid signatures for Andersen to be placed on the Republican primary ballot, the attorney general’s office said. Rimpel signed affidavits to affirm he gathered signatures for the petition from people who signed it in his presence.
Each person was charged with attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, and perjury, a misdemeanor, court records show. The other cases are pending in Denver District Court.