Four more plead guilty in Los Angeles homeless voter fraud scheme

Four Los Angeles residents have pleaded guilty to organizing a voter fraud scheme in the city's Skid Row neighborhood, paying homeless people with cigarettes and cash to obtain fake signatures on various voter documents. 

The defendants "admitted their role in a scheme where money and cigarettes were offered to homeless people on Skid Row in exchange for false and forged signatures on ballot petitions and voter registration forms," the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said in an announcement this week. 

The admissions of guilt follow another participant in the scheme pleading guilty in February to taking part in the fraudulent activity. 

The scheme specifically involved "soliciting hundreds of false and/or forged signatures on state ballot petitions and voter registration forms by offering homeless people $1 and/or cigarettes for their participation," the district attorney's office said. 

The crimes took place over two election cycles — 2016 and 2018. Four other individuals implicated in the scheme "face various charges including use of false names on a petition and voter fraud," according to a press release from the prosecutor's office.

The guilty parties in the case have thus far received sentences ranging from jail time to suspended sentences to formal probation.