The watchdogs mentioned they’ve discovered that over 476,000 Florida voters in 2024 solid ballots with out offering legally required ID.
A few election integrity watchdogs wish to know why state information from Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, 2024, seems to indicate that lots of of 1000’s 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 Folks’s Audit and Jenine Milum, an impartial administration fraud analyst, concluded that one thing went incorrect within the state’s mail-in voting program final fall.
After analyzing the every day information for the 2024 normal 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 individuals 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 law.
Jurski and Milum advised The Epoch Occasions that there is no such thing as a query that the state digitally recorded the issue.
“That’s past dispute. Nonetheless, 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, tackle, 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 exhibits 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 Occasions in a telephone interview that he was unfamiliar with the state’s information for his county on Nov. 6, which confirmed that 876 individuals voted with out presenting the legally required ID.
Klein defined that whether or not a VBM utility was made on-line, in-person, or over the telephone, all fields should be crammed in, together with the right ID verification quantity as required by state legislation.
He mentioned the quantity should match the quantity on file within the workplace or the poll shouldn’t be issued.
“For our personal recordkeeping functions, all purposes 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’t perceive how the state’s information might say in any other case.
Dixie County Elections Supervisor Darbi Chaires advised The Epoch Occasions by telephone that she couldn’t clarify how state information might checklist 1,091 Dixie County individuals as having voted by mail with out correct identification verification.
In a subsequent telephone interview, Chaires advised The Epoch Occasions that she had since contacted the state for solutions however discovered nothing.
“All I can let you know is we in Dixie County observe the legislation,” she mentioned.
The Greatest 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 line with 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 Occasions that she would look into the matter and share her findings.
As of press time, Plessinger has not supplied any info.
“Our findings are indeniable as a result of they arrive from the state’s personal information,” Milum advised The Epoch Occasions. “Accuracy is essential. All I would like is the reality.”
In an open memo directed to Florida election officers, Jurski raised the chance that the statute mandating the ID verifications might have by some means “been ignored” by some supervisors of elections and their workers.
“The identification verification legislation has been strengthened just lately,” famous Jurski in an interview with The Epoch Occasions. “I wish to know what the state did, if something, to coach SOE officers on the brand new stricter legislation.”
Jurski said 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.
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