A West Virginia postal carrier has been charged with attempted election fraud after he admitted to altering the party affiliations of five mail-in requests for absentee ballots from Democrat to Republican, the Department of Justice said. Thomas Cooper, 47, said he changed the information on eight requests for ballots in West Virginia, which has rolled out a plan to send every registered voter in the state an absentee ballot request amid the coronavirus pandemic. Cooper delivered the applications last month to the Pendleton County clerk and they “appeared to have been altered by use of a black-ink pen,” according to U.S. Attorney Bill Powell. Cooper told Bennie Cogar, an attorney general’s office investigator, that he altered the forms “as a joke” and that he was “just being silly,” according to an affidavit.