{"id":1717670,"date":"2022-10-31T06:17:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T10:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1717670"},"modified":"2022-10-31T07:34:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T11:34:40","slug":"widespread-ballot-harvesting-operation-revealed-in-this-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/widespread-ballot-harvesting-operation-revealed-in-this-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Widespread Ballot Harvesting Operation Revealed in This State"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwidespread-ballot-harvesting-operation-revealed-in-this-state%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1717670&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-florida\">Florida<\/a> Department of Law Enforcement is considering investigating an alleged long-running and widespread <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-ballot-harvesting\">ballot harvesting<\/a> operation among black communities in the central part of state.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement officials are considering probing the matter on the recommendation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-election\">election<\/a> crimes unit, the\u00a0Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS), officials confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis\u2019 new election crimes body was established this year in an effort to hold individuals in the state accountable for voter fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement officials confirmed they are looking into the matter in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Florida Department of State\u00a0has received a complaint regarding alleged ballot harvesting in Orange County, which is currently under review to determine if an investigation is warranted,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate statement to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/politics-policy\/elections\/florida-opens-criminal-probe-democrat-whistleblowers-evidence-ballot\">Just the News<\/a>\u00a0on Wednesday, the department stated that it was made aware of the issue\u00a0around Sept. 1, 2022.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter further inquiry, OECS received additional information related to the allegation on October 17, 2022, and performed a preliminary investigation,\u201d the statement read. \u201cSince OECS is an investigative entity and does not [have] authority to make arrests, the office forwarded the complaint to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for possible violation of\u00a0section 104.0616, Florida Statutes,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>Since the 2020 presidential election,\u00a0Republican lawmakers and experts have\u00a0repeatedly raised concerns over alleged voter fraud that may have swung votes in favor of President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n<p>The conservative election integrity group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.truethevote.org\/the-breitbart-article-true-the-vote-update\/\">True the Vote<\/a> in late 2020 said it had found \u201coverwhelming evidence of ballot trafficking\u201d across key states in the United States, including\u00a0Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>GOP lawmakers have <a href=\"https:\/\/republicans-cha.house.gov\/threat-ballot-harvesting\">accused<\/a> Democrats of ignoring the issue, which they say presents an obvious threat to elections across the country.<\/p>\n<h2>Democrat Blows the Whistle<\/h2>\n<p>In late August, former Orange County Commissioner candidate Cynthia Harris,\u00a0a\u00a0Democrat, filed a sworn affidavit\u00a0with the office of Florida\u2019s secretary of state alleging the\u00a0ballot harvesting operation, according to a Just the News report.<\/p>\n<p>In the affidavit, Harris reportedly said\u00a0voting activists in Orlando were being paid\u00a0$10 for each third-party ballot they collected.<\/p>\n<p>Harris told <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/politics-policy\/elections\/florida-opens-criminal-probe-democrat-whistleblowers-evidence-ballot\">Just the News<\/a> she was concerned about the broken chain of custody with ballots collected by third parties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, it\u2019s just utterly ridiculous that people don\u2019t understand that once that ballot leaves your hand and it\u2019s not placed in the mailbox, or it\u2019s not directly given to the supervisor of elections, you don\u2019t know where it goes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The probe into the alleged\u00a0ballot harvesting comes shortly after an Arizona Democrat and school board member was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/arizona-democrat-sentenced-to-30-days-in-jail-for-ballot-harvesting_4799411.html?utm_source=ai&#038;utm_medium=search\">sentenced to 30 days in prison<\/a> after pleading guilty earlier this year to\u00a0one count of ballot abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Guillermina Fuentes, a 66-year-old former mayor of the town of San Luis, was accused of being involved in a ballot\u00a0harvesting scheme during an August 2020 municipal\u00a0election in which she allegedly illegally collected early ballots from four individuals that were not family members.<\/p>\n<p>Under\u00a0Arizona\u2019s anti-ballot harvesting law, it is a felony to hand in early ballots for individuals who are neither family nor household members unless the person handing in the ballot is the voter\u2019s caregiver.<\/p>\n<p><em>Bill Pan contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-katabella-roberts\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/ttl7dayERL_WEB_KatabellaRoberts.jpg\" alt=\"Katabella Roberts\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Katabella Roberts is a news writer for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on the United States, world, and business news.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Florida Department of Law Enforcement is considering investigating an alleged long-running and widespread ballot harvesting operation among black communities in the central part of state.Law enforcement officials are considering probing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1697968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1717670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1717670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1697968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1717670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1717670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1717670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}