Democrat blows whistle on alleged ballot harvesting scheme, Florida opens criminal probe
Former candidate for Orange County commissioner describes widespread vote trafficking operation in Orlando area, authorities see enough evidence to warrant criminal probe.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' new election crimes unit has recommended state police open a full criminal investigation into a Democrat whistleblower's detailed complaint of a long-running, widespread ballot harvesting operation in the African-American communities in politically important central Florida.
Former Orange County Commissioner candidate Cynthia Harris filed a sworn affidavit in late August with the Secretary of State's office alleging that illegal operations to collect third-party ballots have been going on for years in the Orlando area where voting activists are paid $10 for each ballot they collect.
She described an intricate system funded by liberal leaning organizations that dispatch ballot brokers into black communities to pressure voters to turn over their ballots. The $10 fee per ballot is divvied up among the parties who help complete the harvesting.
The collection and delivery of ballots by third parties is illegal in Florida.
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The development in Florida adds an explosive new allegation to concerns nationwide that ballot trafficking is widespread in some battleground states, a claim made famous by the research of the conservative watchdog group True the Vote and a documentary released earlier this year by filmmaker Dinesh D'Sousa called "2,000 Mules."
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Harris, who narrowly lost her election for county commissioner in August, described to Just the News her years-long knowledge of ballot harvesting in the black communities in central Florida. She even recorded a ballot broker coming to her home in 2017 to collect her ballot, and obtained the script that harvester was given by her bosses to make the pitch for a voter to turn over their ballot.
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"Well, in communities that don't look like me, no one does this," she said, referring to white neighborhoods. "But in our community it's kind of like an accepted practice that the man is coming by to pick up my absentee ballot or the lady is coming to pick up my absentee ballot."
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"Ballot brokers typically work up to a year in advance," she stated. "Ballot brokers visit individuals in their residences and assists the individual with filling out a request for a mail-in ballot. After the mail-in ballot arrives, the voter is instructed to wait for the ballot broker returns to the individuals residence. They are asked to not seal the certificate envelope."
"In rare circumstances, if the voter has filled out the ballot and sealed the envelope certificate, the ballot broker will take the ballot and then steam open the sealed envelope," the affidavit added. "The ballot broker will either correct any votes, if necessary, that were not voted according to their wishes or just throw them out."
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Harris, who has worked as an election poll worker in the past, said her biggest concern in coming forward is that ballots collected by third parties have no chain of custody, making it easier to commit fraud such as destroying a ballot or altering it.
"You know, it's just utterly ridiculous that people don't understand that once that ballot leaves your hand and it's not placed in the mailbox, or it's not directly given to the supervisor of elections, you don't know where it goes," she said. "It's possible that they throw them away. We've seen evidence of that.
"You see them steam open the ballots and then they mismark them so that if it's not for their candidate, then that ballot is spoiled. So when people think that the numbers are low, it's really not low, it's just that someone has intercepted before it gets to the proper authorities."
So they either pick up blank ballots and fill them out "right," or they pick up already filled out ballots -- but they throw away the ballots for the "wrong" candidates, or steam open the envelopes to "correct" them so they are votes for the "right" candidate.
$10 per ballot.
Common practice.
Across the country.
I cut out the parts where she discusses going into the nursing homes and collecting all the blank ballots.