Palm Beach trial to move forward for woman accused of voting in both Florida and Alaska

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A case against a woman accused of registering to vote in Alaska and Florida will proceed to court.

Palm Beach Circuit Judge Cymonie Rowe denied a motion to dismiss charges against Cheryl-Ann Leslie.

The Loxahatchee woman faces two counts of casting more than one ballot in the same election. She is accused of trying to vote in Alaska by fax days after voting in person at a Palm Beach County early voting location in the 2020 General Election. She is also accused of voting by fax in a Primary election in Alaska in August a day after her mail-in ballot was received in the Florida Primary.

While attorneys for Leslie argued she had not tried to vote in a Florida election twice, and therefore the state lacked the jurisdiction to charge her with a crime, the judge wrote that was an “absurd” interpretation of the law.

“Both the State of Florida and the State of Alaska criminalize voting more than once in the same election,” reads a judge’s order.

While attorneys had pointed at a case from Arizona where an individual was cleared of voting in two states because the votes were in unrelated elections, Rowe wrote this case is different. That’s largely because the Arizona case was from 2010, not a presidential election year. But when Leslie cast votes in November, she voted in the presidential election in two states.

Leslie, a registered Democrat, was arrested in November by a dedication election crimes police force in November. Her arrest was separate from a round of voting arrests announced months prior involving individuals who wrongly registered to vote before casting ballots.

A release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Leslie claimed her work as a physician assistant required extensive travel between multiple states.

But investigators said she voted in both Alaska and Florida in the 2014, 2016 and 2018 election cycles before attempting to do so again in 2020.

A statewide prosecutor is bringing the case forward on authority recently granted by the Florida Legislature in a bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. While a number of local prosecutors have refused to pursue cases.

The trial is scheduled for April 14.