According to reports in Miami, canvassers wearing red caps and shirts have been scamming people into changing their voter registration from Democrat to Republican without their knowledge.
This apparently has happened on several occasions.
What exactly happened?
The report comes from the Orlando Sentinel where they report that a citizen named Juan A. Salazar says he was approached by the canvassers who asked him if he wanted to fill out an application to get his new voter ID card. He said he got one every election and did not need it.
The canvassers told him that he would “get it faster” by filling out their application.
However, after filling it out, Salazar noticed that instead of being registered as a Democrat, he was now marked as a Republican.
“I don’t have a clue why they did it or how they did it. It just happened,” Salazar told reporters according to WPLG Local 10 News. Salazar is not alone as many other Miami residents claim their voter registration has also been switched from Democrat to Republican without warning or explanation.
“They asked me if I wanted to fill out a form or do it online, and then they just gave me a clipboard and that is when I did it,” Salazar said. He was spoken to about the incident on Friday by an investigator from State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle’s office.
It makes you wonder what else they are doing to people that aren’t noticing.
Some Miami residents have called voter fraud hotlines as they say they have contacted their local election supervisor who have not been able to help them change their registration back to Democrat.
At least one person claims his mail-in ballot has already been rejected because of his registration status.
What’s being done to stop this?
In response, Miami-Dade Mayor Levine Cava said, I” take these allegations very seriously and will look into them immediately.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is also conducting an investigation into voter registration irregularities in other parts of Miami-Dade County and Broward County, state officials announced last week.
Of course the executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, Helen Aguirre Ferré, said this is nothing to worry about and that claims from people like Salazar aren’t concerning.
Her official statement on the matter was telling.
“The RPOF conducts its voter registration in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. Individuals are free to make any decision related to party affiliation, which includes choosing not to register with a political party. Overwhelmingly, Floridians are choosing to register to the Republican Party on their own and this trend shows no sign of subsiding.”
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Florida is a hot bed for voter fraud and voter scams
In the 2020 election, Florida election officials are looking for snowbird voter fraud, combing through records to find people who voted in multiple states.
So far, three residents of the sprawling Villages retirement community have been charged with voting multiple times in the 2016 presidential election. Lake County has referred six additional potential cases to state prosecutors for further investigation, and Osceola County has identified seven problematic votes.
Voter fraud is uncommon, and the small number of potentially fraudulent votes cast out of more than 10 million in Florida would not have changed the outcome. However, that doesn’t stop people from attempting to play trick on unsuspecting voters.
Election officials, on the other hand, say they want to send a message to anyone considering voting more than once in an election. Florida has a large number of seasonal residents with multiple addresses who could try to mail a ballot in one state and vote in another.
“You commit fraud in the state of Florida, and we will do everything possible to catch and charge you,” said Wesley Wilcox, president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections’ association. “One of the benefits of charging these people is it’s a deterrent. It may take me a year to catch you, but I will catch you.”
It is not illegal to be registered to vote in more than one place, but casting more than one ballot in a federal election can result in serious legal consequences. It is a felony in Florida, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
