Kirk Hartle was "shocked" when he found out that his deceased wife had voted in the 2020 election, the fraud detected fairly quickly as part of the election certification. Hartle called it "sickening" and that he was in "disbelief" as to how it could have happened. He claimed that her ballot had been stolen.

Well, after a lengthy investigation of almost a year, it was determined that Hartle himself forged the signature and he's now facing charges. Oh, and why of course Kirk Hartle and his deceased wife Rosemarie are, or in her case were, registered republicans.

Go figure.

Source: KLAS

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas man is accused of forging his dead wife’s signature on her ballot, mailing it in and then claiming it had been stolen, prosecutors said. The I-Team was first to report that man is now facing charges.

Donald “Kirk” Hartle, 55, faces two charges relating to the 2020 election, records showed. The charges come after an investigation from the Secretary of State’s Office, which investigates any voter fraud allegations in connection with the Nevada Attorney General’s Office.

Rosemarie Hartle, of Las Vegas, died in 2017 at age 52 from breast cancer, Kirk Hartle, told the I-Team in November. A ballot for Rosemarie was issued in October and later received by the county, but Kirk said the ballot never came to his house. The I-Team found even though Rosemarie died in 2017, her name appears on the active voter list.

Kirk Hartle was "shocked" when he found out back in November that his deceased wife had voted and it was detected. (Probably more the latter part, one suspects.)

“That is pretty sickening to me to be honest with you,” Kirk Hartle told the I-Team in an interview last year. “It was disbelief. It made no sense to me, but it lent some credence to what you’ve been hearing in the media about these possibilities and now it makes me wonder how pervasive is this?”

“Have you started to think about the possibilities here?” the I-Team’s David Charns asked Kirk Hartle in November. “If it was taken in the mail? If it was taken from your mailbox? Have you started to think about that?”

“I’ve wondered about how that could have happened,” he said.

“Do you have any speculation?” Charns asked. Hartle laughed and said, “I don’t.

The Nevada state Republican Party made hay about it then, citing widespread voter fraud. (In actuality, only a handful of cases of actual voter fraud were detected in the state, with five people voting twice.)

Their response back in November 2020.

“Disbelief” and “sickening”... That’s how Kirk Hartle feels about someone voting in his deceased wife’s name.

How did the forged signature pass @ClarkCountyNV’s signature verification machine?

And this is isn’t the only case of a deceased person voting in NV. pic.twitter.com/5LYoNx59m2

— Nevada GOP (@NVGOP) November 10, 2020

And the reporter's tweet.

#BREAKING: Las Vegas man who claimed his dead wife’s mail-in ballot showed voter fraud is accused of sending it in himself and voting twice, investigators confirm. Donald "Kirk" Hartle faces two charges relating to the 2020 election. His wife died from cancer in 2017. #8NN pic.twitter.com/gZrrlpVV1O

— David Charns (@davidcharns) October 21, 2021