{"id":1719885,"date":"2022-11-01T11:32:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T15:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1719885"},"modified":"2022-11-01T11:33:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T15:33:14","slug":"fl-democrat-election-official-claimed-he-didnt-know-anything-about-ballot-harvesting-problems-this-video-says-otherwise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fl-democrat-election-official-claimed-he-didnt-know-anything-about-ballot-harvesting-problems-this-video-says-otherwise\/","title":{"rendered":"FL Democrat Election Official Claimed He Didn\u2019t Know Anything About Ballot-Harvesting Problems. This Video Says Otherwise"},"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\">32<\/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%2Ffl-democrat-election-official-claimed-he-didnt-know-anything-about-ballot-harvesting-problems-this-video-says-otherwise%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=1719885&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>When news broke that Florida\u2019s election crimes division had recommended state police launch an investigation into an alleged ballot-trafficking scheme in Orange County, the local supervisor of elections claimed he was completely unaware of any issues regarding the practice. But a newly unearthed video shows him addressing multiple queries about such operations this past July.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand. I understand,\u201d elections supervisor Bill Cowles, a Democrat, told a woman who said, \u201cthere are ballot chasers\u201d operating in Orange County. This was after another woman asked him about the possibility of someone dropping off 50 ballots to be counted. He noted that \u201cthe ballot still counts\u201d even if it got to the ballot box through the \u201cbad actions\u201d of \u201csomebody else,\u201d and he said investigations wouldn\u2019t take place until after the election if anyone were able to document drop-box abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Cynthia Harris, a former Democrat candidate for Orange County commissioner, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that \u201ca long-running, widespread ballot harvesting operation\u201d was being run in the predominantly black communities around Orlando. That complaint led Florida\u2019s Office of Election Crimes and Security to recommend state police open a criminal investigation, according to a Wednesday <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/politics-policy\/elections\/florida-opens-criminal-probe-democrat-whistleblowers-evidence-ballot?utm_medium=social_media&#038;utm_source=twitter_social_icon&#038;utm_campaign=social_icons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a> by Just the News.<\/p>\n<p>Florida, which regularly strengthens its election laws, has banned and criminalized organized ballot-trafficking operations. Under <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leg.state.fl.us\/statutes\/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&#038;URL=0100-0199\/0101\/Sections\/0101.62.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Florida law<\/a>, absentee voters may designate someone to pick up their ballot, but that person may not collect \u201cmore than two vote-by-mail ballots per election, other than the designee\u2019s own ballot\u201d or those \u201cfor members of the designee\u2019s immediate family.\u201d Election integrity experts have long said the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawinsider.com\/dictionary\/ballot-harvesting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">process<\/a> of having third parties heavily involved in unsupervised ballot trafficking is ripe for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/election-integrity\/commentary\/vote-harvesting-recipe-coercion-and-election-fraud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">election malfeasance<\/a> and coercion.<\/p>\n<p>Harris placed some of the blame for the purported ballot-harvesting issues on Cowles, saying he\u2019s \u201cbeen there since 1996\u201d and that the problem \u201chas been a blind eye turned on our community.\u201d When asked about Harris\u2019s allegations by Just the News, Cowles claimed he was \u201cnot aware of any issues regarding ballot harvesting\u201d and was \u201cunable to comment on that at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The newly unearthed video obtained by The Federalist, however, puts Cowles\u2019 assertion in doubt.<\/p>\n<p>Back in July, Cowles <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo\/?fbid=5719536401409577&#038;set=a.541473642549238\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spoke<\/a> at a virtual event on voter registration and vote-by-mail. During the question period, a woman asked a few questions about dropping off absentee ballots. First, she wondered if the rules limiting ballot drop-offs to family members applied also to the drop boxes stationed outside.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was my question regarding the ballots \u2014 absentee ballots,\u201d began a woman named Pam, who is reportedly Pam Powell, a former <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Pam_Powell\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2022 Democrat primary candidate<\/a> for Florida\u2019s 41st House District. \u201cYou mentioned about the drop-off ballots having to be family members once we go inside the location to drop the ballots off. My question is: There\u2019s a dropbox outside. Is there a limit on the number that you can put in that dropbox?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cowles said the statute limiting ballot harvesting to immediate family members plus two other individuals also applied at drop boxes. He said there<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida Democrat election official who claimed he had no knowledge of ballot-harvesting issues in his county is on video acknowledging the problem earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":1719888,"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":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1719885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"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\/1719885","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\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1719885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1719888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1719885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1719885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1719885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}