Project Veritas found Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) connections to a cash-for-ballots harvesting scheme.
The ballot harvesting scheme operates in three locations: Riverside Plaza apartments, senior citizen community at Horn Towers, and Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave.
The last location “also functions as a voting location and ballot drop-off site.”
A former political worker said that Ali Isse Gainey, Omar’s campaign manager, is a key player:
The source said, “[Gainey], who’s working in Ilhan’s campaign is the one who is managing the voting place. They bring them. They line them. They put the open ballots in there and then they take them in and say, ‘Here,’ and the people mark [the ballots].”The practice is pervasive she said.“They’re accepting temporary addresses; they’re accepting all kind of shenanigans,” she said.“People that are showing their ID: ‘I moved 30 days ago, my ID’s not come back.’ ‘OK, just give us the last four of your social and tell us the address,’ and then somebody else will say ‘Yeah.’ They will send people who are helping them vote and saying: ‘Yeah, I can vouch for this madness,’” she said.
The worker expressed frustration that Omar’s crew “perfected” voter fraud and taken advantage of the Somali community:
“They have perfected this system,” she said. “This is what they do. They will tell you we are applying for your ballot. They take a picture of your social security and your driver’s license. They have a database. When the ballot comes, they track it, sometimes, they make fake emails. They track the ballot. Then, they come and pick up the ballot—unopened,” she said.“So, there is vested interest, but we are victims of the system,” she said. “They [the Omar political machine] don’t give a shit about any Somali.”Our source was disgusted by the exploitation of her vulnerable community.“No, and the ones that didn’t vote on ballots, the young people, and the women and stuff, they were paying cash, cash, cash,” she said. “They were carrying bags of money. And when you vote and they mark you off, then you get in the van, they give you the cash.”
The video shows a “ballot broker” keeping hundreds of absentee ballots in his car.
From Project Veritas:
“Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentees’ ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these, my car is full. All these are for Jamal Osman… We got 300 today for Jamal Osman only,” said Liban Mohamed in a series of Snapchat videos posted July 1 and July 2 on his own Snapchat profile.Mohamed said he was collecting the ballots to help his brother win the city’s Aug. 11 special election for a vacant Ward 6 city council race—which was held the same day as the primary for Omar’s MN-05 congressional seat. Ward 6 is the heart of the city’s Somali community and the Omar’s political base.James O’Keefe, the founder and CEO of Project Veritas, said: “Ballot harvesting is real and it has become a big business. Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities—and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk.”O’Keefe said, “We are showing Americans what is really going on in one of our great cities—but, it’s not me saying—we have the operators on tape saying it all themselves.”
Mohammed also said:
Mohamed continued: “Money is everything. Money is the king in this world. If you got no money, you should not be here period. You know what I am saying.”Mohamed said that his political methods are interwoven with money. “Money is everything and a campaign is managed by money. You cannot campaign with $200 or $100 you got from your grandmother or grandfather. You cannot campaign with that. You gotta have an investment to campaign. You gotta have fundraisers.”
Omar Jamal is the main person involved in the investigation. He works as a political insider in the Somali community, with the Ramsey County Sheriff Department, and chairman of the Somali Watchdog Group.
Jamal contacted Project Veritas “because he wants to eliminate the corruption that weakens his community.” This includes the ballot harvesting within Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL).
Ilhan Omar is a rising star and power broker within the party:
“It’s an open secret,” he said. “she [Omar] will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that.”The political insider said he hopes there is still time to clean up elections in the country.“If American people don’t pay attention to what’s happening, the country will collapse,” he said.“The regulations, if you ignore that and you let corruption and fraud become a daily business and then tough luck, the country will not exist as they [Americans] know it,” Jamal said.“I’m afraid it’s already too big to stop, you know, maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s already too big to stop,” he said. “There’s a lot of people invested in this, you know, and they don’t care how they did it: ‘We win,’ and that’s it.”
Jamal interviewed one ballot harvester, who explained his role.
This person received payment “to vote in the Aug. 11 special election and primary, along with a Project Veritas undercover journalist.”
The Somali-American operatives visited this person’s “apartment building to oversee the voter filling out the paperwork.” He continued:
“They come to us. They came to our homes. They said: ‘This year, you will vote for Ilhan,’” he said. “They said: ‘We will make the absentee ballots. We will fill out the forms for you and when you get them back, we will again fill it out and send it.”There was no need to go to the voting site, because the Omar operatives told him: “You stay home and you will not go to the place.”After the ballots are signed and documented the harvester said he got paid.“When we sign the voting document and they fill it out is when they give us the money,” he said. “The minute we signed the thing [ballot] for the election. That’s when we get paid.”
The ballot harvester said the scheme targets elderly voters by requesting their ballots. The harvester admitted that they take away the ballots from the elderly.
One political operative for the DFL, only identified Jamal, feared to speak out about the abuses:
“They fight you if you speak up,” Jamal said. “Like what? Like what can I do? Like get jumped? Hell no. They ain’t got—no, no, I’m good.”The DFL operative said he also saw Mohamed’s Snapchat videos. “I was looking at them and they were not filled. They were blank.”“Liban didn’t get it in a unique way,” he said. “He just gets them the way that everybody before him, or even, maybe even after him will do, which is go to the elders, maybe bait them and collect and help to them and he’s helping them–so, I think that’s the process of collecting from the seniors, from their buildings.”
Jamal explained that ballot harvesting is miseducating immigrants about democracy. They do not know how politics work in America so this process makes them think this is the way to go and that it is legal.
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