The watchdogs mentioned they’ve discovered that over 476,000 Florida voters in 2024 forged ballots with out offering legally required ID.
A few election integrity watchdogs need to know why state information from Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, 2024, seems to indicate that a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals all through Florida seem to have voted by mail with out offering the legally required identification.
Performing independently of one another, Kris Jurski of the Florida Individuals’s Audit and Jenine Milum, an unbiased administration fraud analyst, concluded that one thing went unsuitable within the state’s mail-in voting program final fall.
After analyzing the every day information for the 2024 basic election supplied by the Elections Division of the Florida Secretary of State’s workplace, Jurski, and Milum, say they found the identical factor—statewide, greater than 476,000 folks voted with out offering a Florida driver’s license or a state-issued picture ID card or the final 4 digits of their Social Safety quantity, as required by legislation.
Jurski and Milum advised The Epoch Instances that there is no such thing as a query that the state digitally recorded the issue.
“That’s past dispute. Nevertheless, questions stay as to how and why this might occur,” mentioned Jurski.
Thus far, Florida’s state elections officers have supplied no solutions.
Methodology
The state’s information is introduced within the type of multi-column spreadsheets containing traces displaying the title, deal with, voter ID quantity, vote-by-mail (VBM) quantity, date of the election, in addition to the dates the VMB poll was requested, delivered, and returned.
On the finish of every line are columns AK and AL. If the voter introduced a driver’s license or state ID card, the cell within the column AK is populated with the letter Y(es), if not the letter N(o) is entered.
The identical Y and N format is utilized in column AL, which reveals whether or not or not the voter gave the final 4 digits of his Social Safety quantity.
Jurski and Milum pulled out all of the names that had two Ns within the columns on their line. They then checked to see if their ballots had been returned after which added them as much as arrive at their totals for every county.
Some County Responses
Alachua County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) spokesperson Aaron Klein advised The Epoch Instances in a telephone interview that he was unfamiliar with the state’s information for his county on Nov. 6, which confirmed that 876 folks voted with out presenting the legally required ID.
Klein defined that whether or not a VBM software was made on-line, in-person, or over the telephone, all fields have to be stuffed in, together with the correct ID verification quantity as required by state legislation.
He mentioned the quantity should match the quantity on file within the workplace or the poll isn’t issued.
“For our personal recordkeeping functions, all functions are scanned into our workplace’s system,” mentioned Klein, who insisted that nobody voted by mail in Alachua County with out presenting the mandated identification.
Klein mentioned he can not perceive how the state’s information may say in any other case.
Dixie County Elections Supervisor Darbi Chaires advised The Epoch Instances by telephone that she couldn’t clarify how state information may listing 1,091 Dixie County folks as having voted by mail with out correct identification verification.
In a subsequent telephone interview, Chaires advised The Epoch Instances that she had since contacted the state for solutions however discovered nothing.
“All I can inform you is we in Dixie County comply with the legislation,” she mentioned.
The Largest Numbers
The variety of mail-in voters in Pinellas County seems on state information to have been greater than 169,000.
The workplace of Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Miami-Dade County seems to have had greater than 200,000 mail-in voters vote with out presenting the required identification, in response to the state information.
The determine was the best for any county in Florida.
Alina Garcia, Miami-Dade County’s SOE, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
On Jan. 31, Gretl Plessinger, communications director of the Florida Secretary of State’s workplace, advised The Epoch Instances that she would look into the matter and share her findings.
As of press time, Plessinger has not supplied any data.
“Our findings are indeniable as a result of they arrive from the state’s personal information,” Milum advised The Epoch Instances. “Accuracy is essential. All I would like is the reality.”
In an open memo directed to Florida election officers, Jurski raised the likelihood that the statute mandating the ID verifications could have by some means “been ignored” by some supervisors of elections and their employees.
“The identification verification legislation has been strengthened just lately,” famous Jurski in an interview with The Epoch Instances. “I need to know what the state did, if something, to coach SOE officers on the brand new stricter legislation.”
Jurski acknowledged that there’s a distinction between the passage of a legislation and its execution.
“Non-public companies take measures to make sure that their insurance policies are applied. Florida’s election administration would profit from such efforts,” he mentioned.
In case you discovered this text attention-grabbing, please take into account supporting conventional journalism
Our first version was revealed 25 years in the past from a basement in Atlanta. Right now, The Epoch Instances brings fact-based, award-winning journalism to tens of millions of Individuals.
Our journalists have been threatened, arrested, and assaulted, however our dedication to unbiased journalism has by no means wavered. This yr marks our twenty fifth yr of unbiased reporting, free from company and political affect.
That’s why you’re invited to a limited-time introductory supply — simply $1 per week — so you may be a part of tens of millions already celebrating unbiased information.
