http://www.zerohedge.com/political/florida-watchdog-groups-allege-mail-ballot-and-voter-roll-violations-2020-2022
Florida Watchdog Groups Allege Mail-in Ballot And Voter Roll Violations In 2020, 2022
Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Saturday, Sep 10, 2022 - 04:30 PM
Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A citizens’ group called the Florida First Freedom Alliance (F3A) last week presented evidence to election officials and law enforcement officers that more than a thousand mail-in ballots were voted from undeliverable addresses in Orange County in the Aug. 23 primary election.
The group also released evidence alleging that across the state serious irregularities occurred involving thousands of unrequested changes of addresses being recorded on voter registration rolls without the knowledge or consent of the affected voters.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis listens as Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody speaks during a press conference at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 18, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
A separate citizens’ group called the Lake County Election Integrity and Voter Protection Coalition (LCEIVPC) collected the data from public source information.
F3A spokesperson Christopher Gleason, of Clearwater, told The Epoch Times, “Based on an analysis of the 2020 election and the data that we have thus far for the 2022 primary, we are seeing Supervisor of Elections Offices sending out envelopes with vote-by-mail ballots enclosed to mailing addresses that cannot receive these vote-by-mail ballots.
“The resulting problem is that there are thousands of completely undeliverable vote-by-mail ballots that were later turned in to election officials as legitimately cast vote-by-mail ballots.”
F3A has made available to election officials a spreadsheet containing the results of a computer crosscheck conducted by LCEIVPC of what Gleason calls “only a small sliver” of those who requested mail-in ballots in Orange County.
Christopher Gleason, spokesperson for the Florida First Freedom Alliance. (Courtesy photo)
The data allegedly reveals that almost 1,100 vote-by-mail ballots were sent to and cast from undeliverable addresses in that small sample alone.
“This is what happens when dirty voter registration rolls result in massive numbers of undeliverable ballots,” Gleason told The Epoch Times.
“The question is, who is voting them?”
The Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
LCEIVPC spokesperson Kris Jurski told The Epoch Times in a recent phone interview:
“There are thousands of people across Florida listed on the voter rolls whose address is flawed with either incomplete or inaccurate information—missing a digit in the zip code, an apartment complex with inaccurate, incomplete, apartment numbers, or none at all, and misspelled words. Small errors. But just enough to render a mail-in ballot undeliverable.
“The whole game is to generate undeliverable ballots—a portion of which are somehow being obtained and voted by somebody else,” alleged Jurski.
“And the volume of those undeliverable ballots also serves the purpose of muddying the waters, creating confusion, and overwhelming the system,” he said.
After analyzing the July 2022 voter rolls, Jurski’s group informed Florida elections officials that in just one of the state’s 27 U.S. congressional districts (District 11) nearly 60,000 residential addresses were in need of updating and correction.
The group found over 30,000 residential addresses that were designated by the United States Postal Service as undeliverable.
Jurski stated there were thousands of address splits in which voters had their addresses temporarily altered in 2020 and that the practice continues today.
“Performing the switch is how an unauthorized actor could get a person’s mail-in ballot without his or her knowledge.
“This may be why there are so many obviously faulty addresses kept on voter registration rolls.”
It may also explain the experience reported by many in-person voters who showed up at their polling places to vote on election day and were told by the election worker they had already voted, Jurski said.
“Thousands of these ballots are being voted by someone—then just in time for the election, the addresses are electronically switched back, making the scheme all but undetectable by local election officials.
“This is classic identity theft,” alleged Jurski.
He explained that the voter’s name, ID number, house number (but not his street name), and all other information in his voting records remain the same on the registration rolls.
He said the switches are done in low volume over a wide area of jurisdictions, and that there is less such activity during primaries because fewer votes are needed to impact the outcome of races than in general elections.
“Many elections in Florida are decided by less than one percent or even by just a handful of votes, so the situation is very concerning,” he said.
Jurski told The Epoch Times that a citizens’ canvass of 12th Street in the city of Clermont in Lake County, conducted on Aug. 27, just days after Florida’s Aug. 23 primary election, found residents completely unaware of a switch that was made to their voter registration records.
Without their knowledge, request, or assent, all of the 12th Street voters surveyed had their addresses electronically changed to say Red Belly Road and then changed back again weeks later.
“We obtained 37 sworn affidavits from the 37 people registered to vote on 12th Street attesting that they never requested a change of address.
A voter information card issued to a resident of 12th Steet in Clermont, Fla. with an inaccurate Red Belly Road address. (Courtesy photo)
“A married couple residing on 12th Street showed us two voter information cards displaying their names and inaccurately listing them as living on Red Belly Road,” Jurski said.
Alan Hays, Supervisor of Elections in Lake County, told The Epoch Times in a Sept. 5 phone interview that he was aware of the 12th Street incident.
Hays, a Republican, said he wants to assure people that every change on the Lake County voter rolls was made by “authorized personnel, either directly employed by Lake County or contracted with it.
“We are not in violation of any law. We completely follow the letter of the law.
“I don’t question the intent of the citizens’ groups. In fact, I share their desire for pure and clean elections.”
Hays explained that the 12th Street changes (to Red Belly Road and back to 12th Street again) resulted from the United States Postal Service referring to the block as 12th Street, while the Lake County E-911 System calls the same thoroughfare Red Belly Road.
“As we were in the process of making our precincts coincide with newly redrawn district lines, the consultant we employed used the E-911 designation of Red Belly Road instead of the name 12th Street.
“Our office chose to use the E-911 Geo Point Data System for our redistricting work,” explained Hays.
Greg Holcomb, the director of public safety support and 911 coordinator for Lake County, told The Epoch Times, “We have never referred to 12th Street in Clermont as Red Belly Road. It has never been named Red Belly Road.
“There was a 12th Street in the Wekiva Falls RV Resort that was renamed Red Belly Road, but that was in Sorrento and has nothing to do with the 12th Street in Clermont. They are on opposite ends of Lake County.”
United States Postal Service records show the communities have different zip codes.
In all but the above-mentioned case of the married couple’s voter information cards, the Postal Service considered the block residents’ mail undeliverable if it bore the Red Belly Road address.
According to Jurski, the long-time personal acquaintance between the couple and their mail carrier may have been a factor in their receiving the misaddressed envelopes containing the inaccurate voter information cards.
In his letter to election officials, Gleason alleged that the existing safeguards provided by Florida law to prevent the misuse of mail-in ballots are being ignored by many county election supervisors.
He pointed to Florida statute 101.6103, a law governing mail-in ballot procedure, which says in part, “Ballots shall be addressed to each elector at the address appearing in the registration records and placed in an envelope which is prominently marked Do Not Forward.”
The F3A provided election authorities with screenshots of mail-in ballot envelopes that were sent out to voters that do not bear what they allege to be the statutorily required instruction “Do Not Forward.”
Instead, the envelopes only say, “Return Service Requested.”
“That is a clear violation of the plain language of the law,” alleged Gleason.
“Specific words have specific meanings in the law and in postal regulations.”
Gleason contends that the deficient labeling does not clearly and definitively inform apartment managers, RV park managers, or mailroom clerks handling other people’s mail that it should not be forwarded.
As evidence of the problem, Gleason’s group provided authorities with a screenshot of a vote-by-mail ballot envelope that had been forwarded in Pinellas County.
Similar evidence of such occurrences in other counties, such as Pasco, has also been sent along to election officials.
Dustin Chase, the deputy supervisor of elections in Pinellas County, disagrees that the envelopes used by his office violate the statute.
Chase told The Epoch Times in a phone interview, “From our perspective and that of our attorneys, we are conducting elections legally pursuant to all laws.”
Chase described F3A as “a very sincere group of patriots that is dedicated to ensuring the integrity of our elections. We respect them.”
However, Chase went on to state that the group is not understanding that the section of the Florida election law it cites applies only to “all-mail-in elections,” such as referendums, where no candidates or offices appear on the ballot and there is no in-person voting.
Gleason contends that the plain statutory language governs the handling of mail-in ballots in all elections.
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