Vote fraud in Florida

Dead people, ineligible felons, 2008

A study conducted by the Florida Sun Sentinel in late October 2008 found:

• More than 65,000 ineligible and duplicate voters on Florida's registration rolls.
• 600 dead people on the list.
• 32,000 multiply-registered voters.
• More than 33,000 convicted felons who should not be eligible to vote.
• In the final five weeks before voter registration closed Oct. 6, Florida added more than 2,600 ineligible felons to the rolls.

Disappearing absentee ballots, 2008

The disappearance of some absentee ballots, picked up under unusual circumstances, has raised some serious questions. Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office. The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn't work for them.

Juan told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department, said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. 'He said, `Don't worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.' Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez's rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Martinez's campaign manager, Jeff Garcia, has asked the Miami-Dade state attorney's office to investigate. Garcia has also spent the past week investigating the complaints, taking sworn statements from the three voters and mounting an ameteur sting operation at the home of an 84-year-old voter to try to catch the culprit.

Burke convicted, 2008

Greg Burke, a former candidate for county commissioner was sentenced to two years probation and restitution for committing vote fraud. Mr. Burke claimed to live in Walton County on election documents, when in fact he lived in Bay County, making him ineligible for the position, and his actions criminal. To falsify election documents is a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Fraudulent registrations in Hillsborough

Residents in Hillsborough County discovered fraudulent voter registration cards using their names after receiving new voter registration cards in the mail. Tampa resident DeeAnn Athan contacted the Hillsborough County elections office and discovered that two voter registration cards had been issued in her name, the one she already possessed, and the new one that just arrived in the mail.

Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson believes that this and other such instances are problems caused by third-party voter registration groups similar to ACORN, such as the Community Vote Project, which pays people to register new voters. "Someone from one of these groups probably saw her name and address in a phone book or elsewhere and registered it, thinking they could get away with it," he said.

The Suarez case, 1997

The Miami Herald won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering how "vote brokers" employed Xavier Suarez, a Republican and a candidate for mayor of Miami, stole the 1997 mayoral election by tampering with 4,740 absentee ballots. According to the paper, many of the votes were cast by homeless people who didn't live in the city and who were paid $10 apiece and shuttled to the election office in vans.

All the absentee ballots were thrown out by a court four months later and Suarez's opponent, Joe Carollo, was installed as the city's mayor. The wording on the Pulitzer description was "for [the Miami Herald's] detailed reporting that revealed pervasive voter fraud in a city mayoral election that was subsequently overturned."

References

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Sunshine on Florida Elections

Vote Fraud in Florida Voting laws in Florida Florida Election Agencies

The Florida Main Page E-poll watchers Portal:Vote fraud