Thomas Cooper, a 47-year-old mail carrier from West Virginia, pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of attempted election fraud and one count of injury to the mail after admitting to changing eight primary ballot request forms with black ink, The New York Times reports.
According to the report, Cooper, who held a U.S. Postal Service contract to deliver mail in Onego, Riverton, and Franklin, changed the political party on five of the primary ballot request forms that he tampered with from Democrat to Republican. This would have caused Democratic voters to get ballots with Republican primary candidates.
A clerk spotted the changes and contacted state officials, which prompted an investigation. The state attorney general’s office then contacted the voters involved, who resided in the three different towns, who confirmed that the ballot requests had been changed.
The Times notes that, while speaking to investigators, Cooper was asked if he was “just being silly,” to which he said he was, claiming he did it “as a joke.”