Delco Borough Officials Admit To Election Fraud In Federal Court

MILLBOURNE, PA — Three Delaware County municipal officials admitted to election fraud offenses in court Tuesday.

United States Attorney David Metcalf said MD Nurul Hasan, 48, MD Munsur Ali, 48, and MD Rafikul Islam, 52, all of Millbourne, pleaded guilty today to election fraud offenses in separate hearings Tuesday.

In February, the three were charged in a 33-count indictment with conspiracy to commit voter fraud, giving false information in registering to vote, and fraudulent voter registration, arising from their scheme, ultimately unsuccessful, to steal Millbourne Borough’s 2021 mayoral election for Hasan.

Hasan, the vice president of the Millbourne Borough Council, pleaded guilty to all 33 charges against him — one count of conspiracy, 16 counts of giving false information in registering to vote, and 16 counts of fraudulent voter registration.

Ali, a member of the Millbourne Borough Council, pleaded guilty to all 25 charges against him — one count of conspiracy, 12 counts of giving false information in registering to vote, and 12 counts of fraudulent voter registration.

Islam, a former member of the Millbourne Borough Council, pleaded guilty to all seven charges against him — one count of conspiracy, three counts of giving false information in registering to vote, and three counts of fraudulent voter registration.

In 2021, Millbourne held elections for mayor, three seats on its borough council, and tax collector.

Hasan entered the majority party’s primary election for mayor.

The primary election was held on May 20, 2021, and Hasan was defeated in the primary by a vote count of about 138 to 120.

In the same primary, Ali was one of three majority party candidates for borough council to advance to the general election, while Islam lost his bid for reelection to the council.

After the primary, Hasan decided that he would run as a write-in candidate for mayor in the general election, which was scheduled for Nov. 2, 2021. Ali and Islam agreed to support Hasan in his write-in campaign.

As detailed in court documents and admitted by the defendants, in or about 2021, Hasan, Ali, and Islam conspired and agreed with one another, and other persons known and unknown to the U.S. Attorney, to steal the 2021 general election for Mayor of Millbourne for defendant Hasan through a multistep process.

The process included obtaining personal identification information of non-Millbourne residents, such as their names, addresses, and dates of birth; using the personal identifying information to access the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s online voter registration (PAOVR) website and change the voter registration addresses for those non-Millbourne residents to locations within Millbourne; using the PAOVR website to request that mail-in or absentee ballots for those non-Millbourne residents be sent to addresses accessible by one or more of the defendants; retrieving the ballots from the Millbourne mailboxes; impersonating the voters and fraudulently casting write-in votes for defendant Hasan to be mayor; enclosing the fraudulently completed ballots in envelopes and forging the voters' signatures on the envelopes; and submitting the ballots in their envelopes to the Delaware County Board of Elections.

The three admitted they contacted friends and acquaintances whom Hasan and Ali knew did not live in Millbourne, told these non-Millbourne residents that Hasan was running for mayor in Millbourne, asked if they could register the non-Millbourne residents to vote in Millbourne, and then cast mail-in ballots for Hasan to be mayor.

Hasan and Ali persuaded some of their non-Millbourne friends to provide them with personal identification information so that Hasan and Ali could register them to vote in Millbourne.

During these conversations, Hasan and Ali told their non-Millbourne friends they would not get in trouble, as long as they did not vote in another election in November 2021.

Hasan and Ali also conspired and agreed to use personal identifying information for other non-Millbourne residents, which the two defendants had obtained from other sources, such as Hasan’s business, to register those nonresidents as Millbourne voters without the knowledge of those non-residents.

Hasan personally did almost all fraudulent voter registrations himself, using a computer at his place of business to access the PAOVR website and change the voting addresses for non-Millbourne residents to locations within Millbourne.

Every time that Hasan accessed the PAOVR website to change a voter registration address, he provided an email address for the voter. Many times, Hasan provided one of four email addresses that he used and accessed.

To divert suspicion from himself, however, Hasan sometimes provided email addresses belonging to other people, who knowingly and willfully permitted Hasan to use their email addresses to cover up Hasan’s actions. One of those people was Islam, who allowed Hasan to use two of Islam’s email addresses when Hasan fraudulently changed the voter registration addresses for six individuals. Islam also permitted Hasan to use two of Islam’s email addresses when requesting mail-in ballots for five non-Millbourne residents.

In total, the defendants conspired to falsely register nearly three dozen non-Millbourne residents as Millbourne voters and cast ballots for those non-Millbourne residents in the 2021 general election for mayor of Millbourne Borough. Hasan went on to lose the election by a vote of about 165 to 138

The three are scheduled to be sentenced on June 18 and face maximum possible sentences of five years in prison for each of the charges to which they have pleaded guilty.