LISBON – An East Liverpool woman has been charged with voter registration fraud in a case that began last September after workers at the Columbiana County elections board found the names of several dead people among new voter registration cards.

Rebecca A. Hammonds, 33, of 133 Fourth St., was served with a secret indictment issued last week by the county grand jury charging her with 32 counts of falsely registering someone to vote and three counts of falsifying a person’s voter registration form by signing their name. The charges are fifth-degree felonies, which carry a maximum possible sentence of one year in prison on each count.

Hammonds was a paid canvasser for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC), a liberal activist group that was involved in voter registration efforts in the county during the months leading up to the fall 2015 election. Elections board director Adam Booth contacted the county sheriff’s office after his staff found voter registration forms submitted by the OOC in the name of five dead people and 24 more with other registration problems that called into question their authenticity.

After conducting the initial investigation, the sheriff’s office turned the probe over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). Meanwhile, OOC fired Hammond and provided investigators names of canvassers and other pertinent records.

“We cooperated fully with BCI since this was first brought to our attention last year,” said OOC spokeswoman Laurie Couch, adding the OOC takes these charges very seriously.

Besides registering dead people, other alleged irregularities included registering an 11-year-old boy, whose mother learned this occurred after receiving a letter from the elections board advising her of his status as a newly minted voter. The birthday and driver’s license number listed on the registration belonged to the boy’s father, who lives in West Virginia.

Couch said the OOC sometimes catches possible problems on registration forms, which they are required by law to point out to the election board. But she said the OOC is limited since it does not have access to a comprehensive database that contains private personal identifying information.

“We do our best to flag them … (but) in this case there were a number of cards they caught that we did not,” she said.

Hammonds is accused of falsely completing the registration forms in the names of 32 people and signing the names of people on three other forms. Following is a list of the 35 people:

Donald G. Bouscher, Catherine E. Yergin, Hugh R. Nile Jr., David L. Crowe, David P. Truckis, Thomas E. Dennis, Brandy K. Kaltenbach, Frederick D. Hull, David J. Jackson, Heidi L. Potts, Brian R. Ingledue, Susan Steel, Becky L. Varian, Gracy P. Wern, Allyson Yajko, Tina M. Frum, Janelle L. Dolence, Dennis Caldwell, Emily L. Smith, Snook A. Hill, Sunshine J. Blake, Joshua K. Voigt, Marcia S. Paster, Ginger L. Privette, Herlinda M.E. Talbott, Lindsey A. Hudson, Thomas J. LeMasters, Amy C. Jackson, Lauren N. Fegert, Shaun E. Bednarek, Eugene Arcuragi, Susanne Stefl, Aaron Tennant, Darrel Nightingale and Angelo Luckino.

According to Couch, the OOC submitted 1,153 new voter registration forms to the elections board last year, and there were only problems with 35. She said they submitted 29,055 new registration forms statewide, and there were no such problems in any other county.

“Compared to the cards we turned in – we registered 30,000 people last year – this is a very tiny portion. It is not common,” Couch said.

Investigators said they do not expect any more indictments.

Hammonds’ supervisor was Amanda Kiger, who was placed on administrative leave by the OOC pending the outcome of the investigation. Couch said Kiger has since quit.