Grief Is Not Voter Fraud

On October 17, 2025, I was charged in the Ninth Circuit Court of New Hampshire with Wrongful Voting under RSA 659:34, I(c). The State has chosen to pursue Class A misdemeanor penalties against me — a level reserved for offenses involving deceit, intent, and criminal purpose.

None of those apply here.

A Dying Wish, Misread as a Crime

One year earlier, on October 15, 2024, my mother, Ruby C. Ponce, died after a long battle with renal failure. I was her full-time caregiver. On her deathbed, she made a simple request: “Get my ballot.”

She had voted in every election for decades, often while hooked to dialysis, determined to do her civic duty even when the system had failed her. When she passed, I went to the Hudson Town Clerk’s office to retrieve her absentee ballot — not to fill it out, not to submit it, but to bury it with her.

It was a symbolic act, not a political one.

No ballot was signed. None was mailed. No fraudulent vote was ever cast.

The Charge

A year later, that act of grief turned into a criminal case.

An arrest warrant was signed by Judge Xiorlivette Bernazzani on October 8. On October 17, I was booked by the Hudson Police Department, fingerprinted, and released on personal recognizance. My hearing is scheduled for November 13 in Nashua District Court.

The charge sheet reads like something from another country:

“Wrongful Voting — Class A Misdemeanor.”

But the only thing I’m guilty of is honoring my mother’s faith in democracy.

When Bureaucracy Replaces Judgment

New Hampshire’s wrongful voting statute exists to prevent election fraud — double voting, impersonation, deliberate manipulation of the system. It requires intent to defraud. The facts of my case meet none of those elements.

Yet here I am, facing criminal penalties because a clerk mistook compassion for conspiracy.

This is not just about me. It’s about what happens when officials act without discernment — when the machinery of government mistakes human grief for criminal conduct. Somewhere between a mother’s dying wish and the paperwork that followed, common sense went missing.

A Misuse of State Power

The State of New Hampshire has limited resources. There are real cases of fraud, neglect, and violence that demand attention. To spend taxpayer dollars prosecuting a caregiver for retrieving her deceased mother’s ballot — one that was never used — is an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

This case sends the wrong message to the public: that compassion is suspicious, that mourning can be criminalized, and that bureaucracy always wins.

The Principle at Stake

Democracy is supposed to honor the human spirit, not crush it.

My mother believed in civic duty until her final breath. I believed that fulfilling her last wish was an act of love. Now I find myself defending that love in a courtroom.

Grief is not voter fraud.

And if the State of New Hampshire can’t tell the difference, the problem isn’t the voters. It’s the system.

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Gracie Gato is a journalist and broadcaster based in Hudson, New Hampshire.