Absentee Ballot Fraud Rampant in Florida

By Marianela Toledo | Florida Watchdog
MIAMI — Just when the whole messy, unsavory business of electoral fraud seems to have died down in Florida, someone has to go and turn up another case.

True the Vote, a citizen-led organization that looks to restore truth, faith, and integrity to elections, has found 173 new cases of electoral fraud in Florida and Maryland. As reported in our story last Wednesday, it appears that some voters believe they are entitled to be registered in more than one state and cast more than one vote.

Those cases of voter fraud may not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but when you consider that in the race for the District 107 House of Representatives, former Rep. John Patrick Julien lost to his opponentBarbara Watson by a meager 13 votes. So really, a few bogus votes here and there in such tight races can make a big difference. Incidentally, Julien later claimed that Watson had purchased ballots to win the election, but a judge dismissed the case due to lack of evidence.

Another notable case was the race for Congressional District 18 where the Patrick Murphy beat  Allen West by a paltry 2,429 votes or 0.7 percent lead. True the Vote once again smelled a rat so they summoned the courts demanding a recount. The results are still pending.

True the Vote says most of the fraud occurred in the counties of Escambia, Clay, Duval, Pinellas and Volusia. But that’s not to say that other counties haven’t dabbled in it as well. Last November a grand jury reported clear violations related to absentee voting during the primaries in Miami-Dade.

Florida Watchdog reported on ‘ballot brokers’ back in March.  Deisy Pentón de Cabrera, who was who was charged last summer with ballot fraud in Hialeah, was hired to collect absentee ballots in low-income neighborhoods from elderly Hispanics.

The investigation resulted in the arrest of Cabrera and Sergio Robaina. Cabrera worked with prosecutors and helped lead them to attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle andMayor Carlos Gimenez.

Florida Watchdog later learned that the case against alleged electoral fraud by Robaina was downgraded to a misdemeanor. Robaina allegedly was involved with ballot brokering. He faced two felony counts and two misdemeanor counts. The politicians he was working for denied having any knowledge of his illegal activities, although the Miami-Dade’s Property Appraisal  Carlos Lopez Cantera told Florida Watchdog last year that he had received offers from ballot brokers offering to help him in his campaign.

Meanwhile, other election-rigging tricks are starting to surface. Last month 26th District Congressman Joe Garcia had to fire his chief of staff, Jeffrey Garcia, who confessed to a plan to manipulate the election through the purchase of hundreds of absentee ballots. Juan Carlos Sopo, Garcia’s director of communications was also forced to resign after he, too, was implicated in the case.

Miami Dade Democratic Party Chair Annett Tadeo told Florida Watchdog “We must unite Republicans and Democrats to end this, so that none of our candidates do a little game with voters or absentee voting.”

And referring to Garcia’s case she added, “It’s a stain, not only for local politics, but that the voters have a right to distrust our elected.”

Contact Marianela Toledo at [email protected] twitter @mtoledoreporter