A second
aide to Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Fla., resigned last
week as part of a continuing voter fraud investigation that continues to plague
the freshman Congressman’s office.
As
previously reported, Florida election law states that only voters, their
immediate family members or their legal guardians are allowed to submit
requests for absentee ballots. The identified requests were not filled
because the elections department’s software flagged them as suspicious.
A Miami
Herald investigation found that hundreds of
2,552 fraudulent requests for the Aug. 14 primaries originated from Internet
Protocol addresses in Miami. The investigation discovered that the ballot
requests targeted Democratic voters in Garcia’s congressional district
indicating a concerted effort by a computer hacker or hackers.
In the primary, the
campaign of Romero Roses, one of Garcia’s competitors, raised concerns about
the odd absentee-ballot requests in the race. Miami-Dade State Attorney
Katherine Fernández Rundle said her office has targeted absentee voting, which
she considers problematic.
Congressman Garcia
tried to initially explain the “situation” by saying:
“I think it was a
well-intentioned attempt to maximize voter turnout”… “I explain it with the
reckless abandon that we play politics in South Florida,” he
said. “It shouldn’t be that way.”
The only intention by
Congressman Garcia and his campaign was to win the primary by any means
necessary even if it meant stealing an election.
The aide who resigned
was Congressman Garcia’s communications director,
Giancarlo Sopo, who submitted his resignation only weeks after Garcia’s chief
of staff, Jeffrey Garcia (no relation to the congressman) resigned at the end
of May.
“Giancarlo informed me on
Friday that he was resigning,” Rep. Garcia said in a written statement to CQ
Roll Call. ”I thanked him for his service to our office. I understand that
he is cooperating with investigators and hope that this will give him an
opportunity to resolve this matter.”
The Miami Herald reported earlier that Sopo had been placed on unpaid
administrative leave last month, only days after Miami-Dade prosecutors and
police raided his cousin’s home in connection with the scheme to request
ballots online for nearly 500 unsuspecting voters in the Aug. 14 Democratic
primary. Garcia said at the time that he did not immediately fire Sopo because he
told Garcia he wasn’t involved in the plot.
In the
plot Sopo recruited his friends or family to assist, Sopo’s Attorney Gus Lage
presumably either to compile or submit the ballot requests.
In a
separate absentee-ballot case, investigators on June 13 raided the home of a
Juan Pablo Baggini, a political worker for the mayoral campaign of Miami
Commissioner Francis Suarez, for submitting 20 absentee-ballot requests from
his computer. Sopo also volunteered in Suarez’s campaign in January.
Despite
winning by a comfortable margin, Congressman Garcia remains one of the most
vulnerable House Democrats of the 2014 cycle. House Republicans have made
Florida’s 26th District a top priority, and the local GOP started talking up
potential Garcia challengers as early as January.
Still,
many top Democrats are sticking by the congressman, as evidenced by Democratic
strategist James Carville sending out a fundraising email
on his behalf.
As this voter
fraud scandal continues to unravel it will likely show the true depth of
corruption involved and how for some campaigns they are willing to do anything
necessary to win, even break the law. This is why elections need to be carefully watched so that we can ensure the
winner is really the winner.
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