The broken voter registration system is receiving new attention after a James Madison University student has agreed to plead guilty to submitting 18 fraudulent voter registration forms. While working for a Democratic-affiliated organization called Harrisonburg Votes, student Andrew J. Spieles claims he created false registrations to help a co-worker meet a quota.

Spieles faces a potential fine of up to $100,000 and up to a year in prison.

Spieles told investigators he “fabricated” registration forms by using data from the Democratic Party of Virginia’s voter files, along with names and addresses from neighborhood “walk sheets” and fake birthdays and Social Security numbers.

Unfortunately for Spieles, he chose the wrong names to use for these falsified documents. A Harrisonburg elections employee noticed that one form was filed on behalf of a county judge’s deceased father, while another employee knew the ex-wife of someone on a different registration form that Spieles had forged. After these were flagged, an investigation uncovered 16 more fraudulent forms.

While authorities say that there is no indication that any fraudulent votes were cast as a result, the case raises questions about the voter registration process. Harrisburg Registrar Debbie Logan noted that applications using a deceased person’s real name and address, but a phony social security number would not be flagged in the voter system.

If that sounds less than reassuring, consider this explanation from the court document that was filed last week: “Absent the assistants’ personal familiarity with certain names on the fraudulent documents, the fraud would not have been detected because the Registrar’s office does not check the validity of the voter-registration applications.” In fact, the Registrar’s office only checks the registration forms “to ensure they were filled out correctly,” and there is “no procedure or policy in place for the Registrar’s office to verify the content of the registration forms except through felon and death reports.”

With virtually no verification system in place, is it any wonder why voter fraud has become such a rampant issue in Virginia and other states. Since most Democrats tend to reject the frequency of voter fraud as a myth, they don’t want to fix these glaring issues in the spirit of bipartisanship.

In a recent statement, Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA) Executive Director Becca Slutzky affirmed that DPVA has “a strong record of abiding by voter registration laws,” and is “committed to ensuring that every eligible Virginian who has the right to vote is given the opportunity to do so.”