Updated: The Miami-Dade Elections Department has rejected close to 13,000 petitions — or an overwhelming majority of signatures — collected by the Accountable Coral Gables group to put three questions on the November ballot.
And something smells fishy.
The political action committee, chaired by Mayor Vince Lago‘s ally and former candidate Alex Bucelo, turned in 14,209 signed petitions for the three proposed charter amendments the mayor has championed — one to change the election date to November, another to require a public vote approval of raises for electeds and a third to require a 4/5th vote on any non-emergency expenditure of reserves. Of those, 1,251 were certified as valid.
That means that 12,958 petitions were rejected for one reason or another. And that spells trouble for the effort, which has until the end of July to reach their goals.
Read related: Coral Gables group submits petitions for referendum on electeds’ salaries
According to the Miami-Dade Elections Department, the breakdown is as follows:
- 3,364 signed petitions delivered on the election date question; 237 were valid; 3,127 were rejected. Of those, three were duplicates
- 5,437 signed petitions on the public approval for compensation; 425 were valid; 5,011 were rejected; 16 were duplicates
- 5,408 signed petitions on the use of reserves; 413 were certified; 4.995 were rejected; 15 were duplicates
This is a huge setback to the effort, which is one of Lago’s current obsessions (the other being Commissioner Melissa Castro). Ladra doesn’t think we have ever seen such a wide margin between the number of petitions submitted and the number of petitions that are certified. This is under 9 percent.
In comparison, the recall PAC, End The Corruption, submitted 1,719 petitions and came up short by almost 120 petitions.
The large number of invalid petitions in this effort indicates that either there was fraud or the campaign was extremely sloppy and a waste of the $50,000 that contributors gave to the PAC, including $10K from developer Sergio Pino, whose home and office were raided by the FBI this week (more on that later).
In the question about the compensation for electeds, for example, there were 55 batches submitted and, of those, 17 were entirely invalid. Not one signature in those 17 batches counted. Of the 54 batches submitted to change how reserves can be used, 25 did not have a single valid signature. And 23 of the 35 batches submitted to change the election date had no valid signatures, either.
Calls and texts to both Lago and Bucelo, an attorney, were not returned.
Read related: New Coral Gables PAC seeks to change election date and commission powers
Someone who saw some of the petitions told Political Cortadito that there were addresses outside the City Beautiful, on Northwest 7th Street and Northwest 17th Avenue — as well as an address on Miracle Mile that doesn’t exist.
Miami-Dade Elections Department provided Political Cortadito with copies of their “petition operator audits,” which indicated that only 252 lived outside the city. Most of the petitions were invalidated because they were “misfiled” or people who were “not registered” to vote. Thousands of people who were not registered to vote apparently signed the petitions.
Gables residents who have already heard about this — including some Lago allies — are whispering fraud. But it’s way too blatant. There’s no way that anyone would think that the elections department wouldn’t double check on the signatures. Not even Alex Bucelo.
Sources have also told Ladra that Lago and his lackeys have stepped up efforts in recent weeks to get the more signatures before the deadline in late July. They are making phone calls and visiting homes. The group needs to get 10% of the number of registered voters in Coral Gables for each of the proposed amendments. At last count, that was about 33,000. So that means roughly 3,300 for each question.
Seeing as how they have between 7.2% and 13% on the three questions — and the fact that they”re just making people up — that looks like a long shot.
Coral Gables ballot petitions rejected en masse by Miami-Dade elections added by Ladra on
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