Federal officials may be looking into charges that the Florida Democratic Party changed dates on “on forms used to fix vote-by-mail ballots sent with incorrect or missing information,” Politico reports.
Although the Florida recount examining ballots cast in both the Florida Senate and Florida gubernatorial race has been a series of massive — and often very public — errors, from allegations of misplaced and mishandled ballots to vote-counting machines being pushed so far beyond their limit they’re overheating, so far there have been only a few allegations of true “vote manipulation,” and this is the first allegation to be referred to the federal government.
The Florida Department of State says it flagged a series of “irregularities” in documents filed last week — “cure affidavits” designed to help voters fix mistakes they believe they might have made on absentee and mail-in ballots. Those affidavits were supposed to have been mailed in before Election Day and postmarked before November 5th.
“But affidavits released on Tuesday by the DOS show that documents from four different counties said the ballots could be returned by 5 p.m. on Thursday, which is not accurate,” Politico reports.
Those ballots may have been deliberately changed.
“Altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect … imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote,” the interim head of Florida’s Department of State said in a letter to the federal government.
“The records released by DOS, which is part of Gov. Rick Scott’s administration, point the finger at the Florida Democratic Party,” Politico reported.
It looks as though the Democrats might have contacted absentee voters whose ballots were rejected to supply a “cure affidavit,” which they then provided by mail. But whomever sent out the “cure affidavits” appears to have physically altered the specified due date to read “November 8th,” two days after the ballots were actually due.
Unsurprisingly, the “mix-up” affected absentee voters in Broward County (though it extended to several other localities).
Officials with the DOS say they aren’t as worried about the conflicting dates, but that the ballots were physically changed. One official said in an email obtained by Politico that while the mix-up was a concern, “a bigger problem is the fact they actually changed one of the DOE forms.”
Those forms have since been submitted to federal investigators.
The Florida Democratic Party called the situation a “distraction” in a statement.
“The courts have already forced Rick Scott to drop a lawsuit after false claims of fraud, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement rejected his desperate attempts to interfere with the important work of counting ballots,” they told Politico. “Now, Scott is once again trying to divert attention and resources from a smooth and successful recount.”
Despite reports of mistakes, slow recounts, and other oddities, the Florida Department of State — which is Republican-controlled — has maintained that they do not believe there is widespread voter fraud at issue in the recounts currently taking place across south Florida.
There is one significant problem, however: recounts were supposed to be certified by Tuesday night at midnight and several significant counties missed the deadline. Democrats have filed for injunctions in both state and federal court to prevent Florida’s Department of State from calling a “premature” end to recount efforts.