Fourteen people - including the mayor of Appalachia and other town officials - have been charged with hundreds of counts of election fraud in a 300-page indictment handed down today by a Wise County grand jury.

The indictment documents at least 1,000 alleged criminal offenses.

Mayor Ben Cooper faces the most charges - 240. They include theft of election documents, violating absentee voting laws, hindering the free exercise of a citizen's voting rights and making false statements on election forms.

The investigation into the Appalachia elections began in earnest nearly a year ago, when town resident Christina McKinney said a supporter of a town council candidate dropped by her home and offered her cigarettes and pork rinds in exchange for her vote - apparently because she happened to be eating a bag of fried pork skins at the time.

McKinney and several other residents of her low-income apartment complex said they were offered beer and cigarettes in exchange for their absentee votes. Close to 20 percent of the votes cast in the town election were by absentee ballot, nearly four times the state average.

As it turned out, McKinney never got to vote absentee. Someone stole the ballot from her mailbox and cast it without her permission, she told police at the time.

A subsequent investigation of McKinney's complaint revealed that many other mail-in ballots were stolen, forged and fraudulently cast. Investigators also uncovered problems with the town police department, which is headed by former town council candidate who dropped out of the race at the last minute and was later appointed captain of the five-man force by the new town council.