Democrats in Florida Reportedly Tried to ‘Fix’ Ballots Across the State After Deadline
Democratic consultant claims he warned party staffers about legality but was ignored.
It seems clear at this point that Democrats in Florida were not going to accept defeat in the 2018 midterms and were prepared to do whatever it takes to win, including fraud. In multiple counties, an effort has been underway to “fix” certain mail ballots in the hope that they could turn the tide after the fact.
Try to imagine the media’s reaction if Republicans were doing this.
Ana Ceballos reports at the Naples Daily News:
Democrats planned to use altered forms to fix mail ballots across Florida after deadline
A day after Florida’s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state’s deadline.
The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties completed a required recount in three top races.
But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a “cure affidavit,” that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.
One Palm Beach Democratic activist said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.
Make no mistake. They knew this was wrong but did it anyway:
Jake Sanders, a Democratic consultant in the Treasure Coast who saw the email, told the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida that he warned party staffers about the legality of using an altered form, but was ignored.
“I warned FDP staff members of the questionable legal status of altering a state form and misleading people their vote would be counted before the court case played out,” Sanders said. “And coordinated campaign leadership told them to keep pushing it that, ‘We are exhausting every possibility.'”
An excellent point:
Note to @washingtonpost This is how democray dies. https://t.co/mPOBHnh5QC
— Helen Raleigh (@HRaleighspeaks) November 16, 2018
This is so bad that even CNN is reporting on it:
Florida Democratic Party faces questions over vote by-mail signature match correction push
Florida Democratic Party officials gave volunteers incorrect information to share with voters about the state’s deadline for curing endangered vote-by-mail ballots that did not meet the state’s signature match requirements, according to an email obtained by CNN.
The “curing” process requires voters to send sworn affidavits satisfying any issues with their ballots to the county boards by 5 p.m. on the day before the election. The deadline this year came on Monday, November 5.
But in a November 7 email obtained by CNN, Jennifer Kim, a field operative for the Florida Democratic Party, instructs phone bankers to tell voters who did not sign their ballots properly that the cut-off is not until November 8, which is three full days after the actual deadline.
You will be relieved to learn that Democrats have hired an investigator to look into this situation.
Ana Ceballos provides this update at the Naples Daily News:
Democrats hire investigator to identify who altered Florida form used to fix ballots
The Florida Democratic Party hired an investigator to identify who altered a state form distributed by a deputy field director to staffers and volunteers working to fix as many rejected absentee ballots as possible after Election Day, the party announced Friday…
“This is a very serious issue. FDP is right to investigate this matter immediately and should share results with the appropriate government agencies, interested press and party officials,” said state Rep. Evan Jenne, who represents Broward County, where one of these altered forms was found.
GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel spoke out about this on Twitter:
We now have evidence that Democrats openly told volunteers to violate Florida law.
But the media says there’s “no voter fraud in Florida,” right?https://t.co/o2Zf4lgekY
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) November 15, 2018
Should we expect more of this in 2020?
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
What they were “fixing” was mismatched signatures. The import is these were not mistakes. These were signatures, virtually all on Democratic votes, that did not resemble in any fashion the signature on record. The idea was to show how the real signature looked and ask the voter to duplicate it.
The telling by the press makes it seem like a fraud, but one merely as to form. It was not.
The part about sending forms with a Nov. 8 deadline seems like a substance issue, not a form issue.
What’s 3 days between friends? Count every vote, even if it’s received after the deadline. /s
Nope, it’s a form issue. if they had failed to get the court order to extend the deadline, the votes collected after the old deadline would not have been counted.
The proper think for them to have done was to send out the forms with the then-correct deadline, and a note saying “yes, we know the deadline has passed, but collect these anyway because we’re trying to get it extended”.
And this is what Americans call FORGERY. Don’t know what you TWANLOCs call it.
People’s signatures change over time. One shouldn’t expect someone’s signature now to match what they signed 30 years ago. When you vote in person you see your old signature and try to match it (not always successfully); why should a postal voter not have the same chance?
True. Which is why we have culling. The signature should be no older than 6 years tops. Signatures are refreshed every time mail in is received, and a few other incidents.
Here in Texas we get a registered voter card every two years (e.g. my current one is valid 1/1/2018 through 12/31/2019). This is supposed to be signed and the poll workers will compare the signature on the card with the signature on the valid photo ID while also validating the info on the ID with the voter roll. I can’t say how well the Socialist-Democrat cities perform this task, but in my semi-rural to rural county the poll workers definitely do. They once questioned my voter registration card having my middle initial while my valid ID has my full middle name. They decided it was not a name mismatch.
Forgot that I also have to sign the log for the ballot ID I am issued.
I “signed” a touchscreen – and if there’s any way to do that in any legible form, I don’t know about it – especially when the clerk is holding the laptop in her hands at an extremely awkward (for me) angle. Anecdotally, I sign things several different ways, and I have no idea which one they would consider legal, since I signed a paper document both when I registered and when I voted in the primary, and neither resembles each other much less what I produced on the touch screen (which was totally illegible, even to me – it looked more like Chinese than anything else).
“But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a “cure affidavit,” that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.”
Still & again, one cannot spell ‘election fraud’ without ‘democrat.’
But the bigger issue is who will get fined or go to jail for this egregious violation of state law? Anybody? Anybody??
Of course not because this was merely a scrimmage for 2020. WE’RE BEING PLAYED, PEOPLE.
A thumbs down vote? Please explain yourself.
Perhaps it was a vote from a Socialist-Democrat, garden variety Socialist, Green Party adherent (whether Socialist or Communist flavor), Communist, Chavista, Macedonian Troll Farm worker, modern iteration of National Socialist Worker’s Party member, some other type of socialist/Red or even a simple mistake.
As Democrat senators showed in the Kavanaugh hearings, the party’s drive for power has become fantastically unbridled and cynical.
Democrats were betting on a sure thing: that a federal judge would extend the deadline for curing ballots. Their faith in the judicial system was rewarded when the deadline was extended to Saturday after Election Day. Democrats will argue that because a court ordered an extension, their plan can’t possibly be considered fraud. That probably will work, too.
They were just being proactive. /s
It wasn’t rewarded nearly enough. Failure to throw out state law completely meant Gillum got what, ONE vote after the manual recount? The courts added to the chaos for a while, but they certainly did not go all the way. Thus, this circus finally comes to a merciful end.
DeSantis would be wise to get this in order, soon. He has all the tools he needs, doesn’t he? I’d rather focus on the future than blame Scott more, however much it might be deserved.
The fact the media always has their back emboldens the Democrats.
Their plan to collect these cure affidavits was not fraudulent at all. Had the deadline not been extended the affidavits would simply have been useless. There is no law against collecting useless affidavits. The fraud was simply in printing the wrong deadline on the forms. They should have printed the then-correct deadline and attached a note saying to collect the affidavits anyway, because they’re applying for an extension. That’s technically fraud and they should not have done it, but it was not an attempt to fraudulently change the result.
Unless, of course, some incompetent Elections Supervisor’s office inadvertently counted them as having cured the original ballot when nobody happened to be watching.
It is definitely fraudulent if they are only “curing” ballots containing votes for a specific party while neglecting votes for the others, regardless of the dubious legality of the procedure as a whole.
“It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” Stalin winks at his new ‘useful idiots’.
And what are we going to do about it?
Nothing.
….
2020 “BREAKING. Florida count rife with corruption! Allegations that Trump votes changed for Hillary!”
500 word essays of outrage printed in dozens of conservative blogs. Noon redrafts her classic Greenwood position
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122409010128236907
“And of course, in some part of our minds we must look to the future. To legislation that will normalize and regularize our voting procedures, make clear and just its rules and regulations, see to it that a Florida will never happen again.” – Noonan, 2000
…?
Go away from me.
FDP hired an investigator? I’m supposed to feel relieved that the issue is being properly addressed?
They hired that Elias guy from Perkins-Coie.
“I warned FDP staff members of the questionable legal status of altering a state form and misleading people their vote would be counted before the court case played out,” Sanders said.
————————————-
As a lawyer wasn’t he supposed to report an illegal act to the proper court? Shouldn’t he be disbarred if he didn’t do so?
Now that he’s outed himself as knowing about this fraudulent act, DOJ needs to bring him in and wring him out on the illegal acts on paper, followed up by indictments and trials.
No, he had no obligation to report anything. He did the right thing warning his client about the questionable legality.
Once the polls close, Democratic voting begins. This is becoming a disturbing trend – suddenly finding tens of thousands of ballots when the polls close and the Democratic candidate is trailing. It started in Kings County (Seattle), moved to Minnesota in 2010 and now it’s a national epidemic.
It moved to Minnesota during the Coleman/Franken recount in 2008. FIFY.
What is most disturbing about all of this is the fact that courts routinely, with little or no pressing reason, order states to ignore their election laws and then set arbitrary extension deadlines. In certain exigent circumstances, such as a poll closing for several hours or a natural disaster which results in a counting delay, such an extension MIGHT be justified, If the failure was intentionally caused to benefit a particular candidate or political party, this can be such an exigent circumstance and should be addressed criminally as well as procedurally. However, simply because a supervisor of elections is unable to complete a count by a preexisting deadline, through incompetence, this should not result in any waiving of a statutorily established deadline.
Democrats throughout the country know from long experience that Democrat judges will agree with almost any argument to extend any election law date to at least the final reporting date for that particular election. Every other “final” date for vote counting is advisory only.
“You will be relieved to learn that Democrats have hired an investigator to look into this situation.”
As someone who has been accused of using sarcasm when I had no intention of doing so (and didn’t think I had), I truly appreciate a good sarcastic line, and that is one!