Saturday, August 18, 2012 10:35:52 PM
Florida votes in question again with Miami absentee ballot scandal
Deisy Cabrera, right, is met by state attorney investigators, left, with her attorney, Eric Castillo, center, outside the State Attorney’s Office in Miami Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. Cabrera was arrested for suspected absentee ballot fraud after authorities say she collected at least 31 ballots under suspicious circumstances.
(AP Photo/The Miami Herald, Tim Chapman)
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/deisy-cabrera-hialeah-voter-fraud_n_1733665.html ]
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, shows ID and his voters registration card as he votes at Precinct 635, in Miami, Fla.,Tuesday Aug. 14, 2012. He is running against long-time commissioner Joe Martinez.
(AP Photo/The Miami Herald, Tim Chapman)
Otto Fernandez casts his vote during the Florida Primary elections in Hialeah, Fla., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012.
(AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
Read more: http://www.voxxi.com/florida-votes-in-question-again-with-miami-absentee-ballot-scandal/#ixzz23xHjRqVc
By Elaine de VallePolitics
Posted on August 14, 2012
Voters in South Florida are going to the polls today to vote for their Miami-Dade mayor, state attorney, county commissioners, several state legislators and even the primary candidates for some Congressional races.
But the winners may have already been decided through about 90,000 absentee ballots that are now tainted by a scandal that has burst open the longtime rumored stealing of absentee votes, mostly from the frail and elderly, that has plagued South Florida for decades.
And it has caused some concern that campaign operatives in the November presidential election will use the absentee ballot machinery – normally controlled by the Republicans in South Florida – and once again raise doubt about Florida’s vote.
The validity of at least 200 ABs and possibly thousands more in today’s election is under question after several arrests in the last few weeks on charges of electoral fraud after people were caught collecting multiple ballots in their possession, which is against county law.
Daisy Cabrera, a longtime fixture of political campaigns who has worked for state senators, that are now going to have to answer for this, was nabbed by the Miami-Dade Police Public Corruption Unit on July 25. She was caught with 31 ballots but had been video taped the day before mailing some others that she had picked up at the post office.
Prosecutors are also talking to Anamary Pedrosa, the 25-year-old secretary of Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo, an aspiring law student who is cooperating with police so she is not charged with delivering 164 ballots – taken to the commissioner’s district office – to the same post office as Cabrera.
Sergio “El Tio” Robaina, the uncle of former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina was arrested last week and charged with two felony counts of voter fraud.
But this is the tip of the iceberg. Those who know about the absentee ballot fraud and rampant exploitation of thousands of seniors who live in the public housing units of Hialeah and Miami know that this has been going on for years.
Last year, there were complaints about the AB tactics used by Robaina’s campaign against then county commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who ultimately beat him to become mayor. This time, however, Gimenez may be smeared by the AB scandal as Cabrera, Robaina and Bovo are all supporting his re-election.
And the dominos promise to keep dropping. All three of those questioned by police so far have ties, in two of the three cases over more than a decade, with the political establishment in Hialeah and have been paid from multiple campaigns.
Sergio Robaina told police defiantly that he had been helping seniors with their ballots for years and would continue to do so.
His nephew — whose net worth rose from $800,000 to more than $8 million during six years in office — benefited greatly from absentee ballot drives.
So did his chosen slate mates. In his first election in 2006, Julio Robaina got a little more than 3,000 absentee ballots. By 2009, that number had jumped threefold to nearly 10,000.
In between was the 2008 Congressional race, ultimately won by former U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart, whose campaign was investigated by the state attorney’s office after absentee ballot fraud accusations surfaced.
It was one of several investigations that centered around a political consultant called the “Absentee Ballot Queen” named Sasha Tirador, but ended, as most do, without an ability to move forward with evidence.
“While the circumstances provide ample basis for suspicion of illegal or improper activity in connection with the handling of absentee ballots by someone associated with the Diaz-Balart campaign, any chance of proving a crime is remote,” wrote Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Joseph Centorino, in the close-out memo in 2010.
Diaz-Balart last week commented on the absentee ballot fraud scandal going on in his home base and admitted to having benefited from the process.
But, he said, the manipulation of ballots had become so rampant and the doubt so deep that there was only one thing to do — go back to the days when only the military and the very infirm or out of town could vote by mail, which has become the convenient moniker. “Vote by Mail.”
“I can’t think of any country except this one where absentee ballots voting by mail is acceptable,” Diaz-Balart told VOXXI as he sat at Chico’s Restaurant last week, endorsing another candidate on the ballot.
“Obviously it’s a really and I’ve done very well with absentees. But they’re not controllable. Even though they’ve always been a part of the process here and we can work with them within the system, I can’t imagine how absentee ballots can be good for democracy.”
Centorino, who has since moved on to be the director of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, has repeatedly said that prosecuting absentee ballot fraud is frustrating because what they need is someone to come forward and provide testimony.
“Do we believe that there is absentee ballot fraud happening? Absolutely,” Centorino said last year when he was still at the State Attorney’s office. “Can we prove it? That’s another matter.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle recused herself from the Deisy Cabrera case after it came to her attention — a week after it came to her attention — that the boletera was connected to her own campaign consultant, Al Lorenzo.
Fernandez-Rundle is on the ballot today.
Copyright 2012 VOXXI
http://www.voxxi.com/florida-votes-in-question-again-with-miami-absentee-ballot-scandal/ [with comment]
===
Absentee-ballot fraud made easy in Miami-Dade. Thanks GOP
Aug. 5, 2012
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/08/absent-ballot-fraud-made-easy-in-miami-dade-thanks-gop.html [with comments]
===
source link for the post to which this is a reply: http://www.thelion.com/bin/forum.cgi?tf=wall_street_pit&msg=2305001&cmd=r&t=
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78621565 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78671105 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78685733 and preceding (and any future following)
Deisy Cabrera, right, is met by state attorney investigators, left, with her attorney, Eric Castillo, center, outside the State Attorney’s Office in Miami Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. Cabrera was arrested for suspected absentee ballot fraud after authorities say she collected at least 31 ballots under suspicious circumstances.
(AP Photo/The Miami Herald, Tim Chapman)
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/deisy-cabrera-hialeah-voter-fraud_n_1733665.html ]
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, shows ID and his voters registration card as he votes at Precinct 635, in Miami, Fla.,Tuesday Aug. 14, 2012. He is running against long-time commissioner Joe Martinez.
(AP Photo/The Miami Herald, Tim Chapman)
Otto Fernandez casts his vote during the Florida Primary elections in Hialeah, Fla., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012.
(AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
Read more: http://www.voxxi.com/florida-votes-in-question-again-with-miami-absentee-ballot-scandal/#ixzz23xHjRqVc
By Elaine de VallePolitics
Posted on August 14, 2012
Voters in South Florida are going to the polls today to vote for their Miami-Dade mayor, state attorney, county commissioners, several state legislators and even the primary candidates for some Congressional races.
But the winners may have already been decided through about 90,000 absentee ballots that are now tainted by a scandal that has burst open the longtime rumored stealing of absentee votes, mostly from the frail and elderly, that has plagued South Florida for decades.
And it has caused some concern that campaign operatives in the November presidential election will use the absentee ballot machinery – normally controlled by the Republicans in South Florida – and once again raise doubt about Florida’s vote.
The validity of at least 200 ABs and possibly thousands more in today’s election is under question after several arrests in the last few weeks on charges of electoral fraud after people were caught collecting multiple ballots in their possession, which is against county law.
Daisy Cabrera, a longtime fixture of political campaigns who has worked for state senators, that are now going to have to answer for this, was nabbed by the Miami-Dade Police Public Corruption Unit on July 25. She was caught with 31 ballots but had been video taped the day before mailing some others that she had picked up at the post office.
Prosecutors are also talking to Anamary Pedrosa, the 25-year-old secretary of Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo, an aspiring law student who is cooperating with police so she is not charged with delivering 164 ballots – taken to the commissioner’s district office – to the same post office as Cabrera.
Sergio “El Tio” Robaina, the uncle of former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina was arrested last week and charged with two felony counts of voter fraud.
But this is the tip of the iceberg. Those who know about the absentee ballot fraud and rampant exploitation of thousands of seniors who live in the public housing units of Hialeah and Miami know that this has been going on for years.
Last year, there were complaints about the AB tactics used by Robaina’s campaign against then county commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who ultimately beat him to become mayor. This time, however, Gimenez may be smeared by the AB scandal as Cabrera, Robaina and Bovo are all supporting his re-election.
And the dominos promise to keep dropping. All three of those questioned by police so far have ties, in two of the three cases over more than a decade, with the political establishment in Hialeah and have been paid from multiple campaigns.
Sergio Robaina told police defiantly that he had been helping seniors with their ballots for years and would continue to do so.
His nephew — whose net worth rose from $800,000 to more than $8 million during six years in office — benefited greatly from absentee ballot drives.
So did his chosen slate mates. In his first election in 2006, Julio Robaina got a little more than 3,000 absentee ballots. By 2009, that number had jumped threefold to nearly 10,000.
In between was the 2008 Congressional race, ultimately won by former U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart, whose campaign was investigated by the state attorney’s office after absentee ballot fraud accusations surfaced.
It was one of several investigations that centered around a political consultant called the “Absentee Ballot Queen” named Sasha Tirador, but ended, as most do, without an ability to move forward with evidence.
“While the circumstances provide ample basis for suspicion of illegal or improper activity in connection with the handling of absentee ballots by someone associated with the Diaz-Balart campaign, any chance of proving a crime is remote,” wrote Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Joseph Centorino, in the close-out memo in 2010.
Diaz-Balart last week commented on the absentee ballot fraud scandal going on in his home base and admitted to having benefited from the process.
But, he said, the manipulation of ballots had become so rampant and the doubt so deep that there was only one thing to do — go back to the days when only the military and the very infirm or out of town could vote by mail, which has become the convenient moniker. “Vote by Mail.”
“I can’t think of any country except this one where absentee ballots voting by mail is acceptable,” Diaz-Balart told VOXXI as he sat at Chico’s Restaurant last week, endorsing another candidate on the ballot.
“Obviously it’s a really and I’ve done very well with absentees. But they’re not controllable. Even though they’ve always been a part of the process here and we can work with them within the system, I can’t imagine how absentee ballots can be good for democracy.”
Centorino, who has since moved on to be the director of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, has repeatedly said that prosecuting absentee ballot fraud is frustrating because what they need is someone to come forward and provide testimony.
“Do we believe that there is absentee ballot fraud happening? Absolutely,” Centorino said last year when he was still at the State Attorney’s office. “Can we prove it? That’s another matter.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle recused herself from the Deisy Cabrera case after it came to her attention — a week after it came to her attention — that the boletera was connected to her own campaign consultant, Al Lorenzo.
Fernandez-Rundle is on the ballot today.
Copyright 2012 VOXXI
http://www.voxxi.com/florida-votes-in-question-again-with-miami-absentee-ballot-scandal/ [with comment]
===
Absentee-ballot fraud made easy in Miami-Dade. Thanks GOP
Aug. 5, 2012
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/08/absent-ballot-fraud-made-easy-in-miami-dade-thanks-gop.html [with comments]
===
source link for the post to which this is a reply: http://www.thelion.com/bin/forum.cgi?tf=wall_street_pit&msg=2305001&cmd=r&t=
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78621565 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78671105 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78685733 and preceding (and any future following)
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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