Yet another reason why the whole Aug. 14 election should be tossed out and a new one ordered: There are more absentee ballot fraud claims and irregularities in two state house races — one of them a Democratic primary with a new “absentee ballot queen” that puts the moniker right on her business card.
Are these people brazen or what? It’s almost as if they know that law enforcement doesn’t care. Well, I guess everybody knows that.
State Rep. John Patrick Julien, who was drawn into seat 107 with State Rep. Barbara Watson during the difficult redistricting process, has filed a formal complaint and requested an investigation into his opponent’s absentee ballot operations after he saw Watson paid a woman who had offered to get him hundreds of ABs for thousands of dollars.
Watson won the election by 26 votes, according to the election department website. So close, there was a mandated recount. She had 83 more absentee ballots than Julien. Without them, Julien would have won the election, same as Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia, who lost solely in absentee votes to termed-out State Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera — who, dicen las malas lenguas, is now out to push ABs for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Hello? Is anybody at the state or federal government paying attention?
According to a story in the Miami Herald and a much better post on VotersOpinion.com by Stephanie Kienzle, the Ladra of the north 305, the new AB queen is Noucelia Josna, who was paid close to $5,000 from Watson’s campaign for “canvassing” and “gotv” (get out the vote), both well-known code words for AB operations (I hope detectives are taking notes). But what the other reporters forgot to mention is that Watson’s campaign finance report on the state’s website shows her campaign also paid someone named Dordy or Dardy Josna in Miami Lakes $700 for canvassing and his next-door neighbor (which could be a typo on the report, like the one time they spelled the queens name Noucelie Joina, by accident, we are sure) Julia Silva got $750 in three payments on the same days that Dardy or Dordy got paid. Just things to note. Maybe investigators will begin to see trends, like whole families and neighbors listed — a tactic used to spread the payments more and raise less suspicion. Also, a tendency to misspell names or get one or two digits off on an address when they are repeat vendors or habitual contributors who are obviously bundling — a tactic used to throw people like Ladra and Stephanie off. (You should still be taking notes, officers.)
Stephanie, by the way, also mentions that Josna worked on two other winning campaigns: U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, who paid her $2,500.00 and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Barbara Jordan, who paid $3,000.00 and, in my humble opinion, got completely ripped off. Jordan didn’t need Josna’s 2,792 ABs since she beat Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson — a Norman Braman puppet who forever lost her creds and might have done better without him — with a comfortable 5,000+ votes and a 24-point margin.
The blogger who is my new favorite today — sorry boys — makes another interesting discovery: State Rep. Watson also paid $2,000 to Dante Sparks for “campaign assistance.” She identifies him as the former police officer and one-time Chief of Staff for former Miami-Dade Commissioner Dorrin Rolle, who was arrested in Opa Locka with the then Vice Mayor Terence Pinder in 2007 and charged with illegal lobbying and unlawful compensation (read: payoffs, kickbacks or bribes).
Julien, who provided the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office Monday with what he called evidence of the AB fraud, is not the only one who has complained of such illegal and/or unethical behavior.
Another letter asking for an investigation was sent by “Suddenly Captain” Paul Crespo, who ran against State Rep. Carlos Trujillo and lost by a huge margin of more than 20 points and more than 850 votes. But in ABs, Trujillo won by almost 2 to 1, with 1,348 to Crespo’s 677.
Of the total 3,700 or so votes cast in that election, more than half were absentee.
Crespo also told Ladra that the numbers get even more disparate when you look at the precincts in and around Sweetwater, where he said the relative of an elected official was collecting ballots from voters. He wouldn’t say who voters named to him over and over and over again when he knocked on their doors and asked about for their vote.
But Ladra knows who it is and so do most political observers with any time in the AB morass: It’s none other than Isolina Maroño, the mother of Sweetwater Mayor Manny Maroño, who is a known boletera who worked alongside known boletera Deisy Cabrera (arrested earlier this month on voter fraud charges after she was found to have 31 ballots) also on the doomed Hialeah mayoral campaign of former State Sen. Rudy Garcia, who is also tainted by this AB scandal but has disappeared and will not answer or return Ladra’s phone calls.
“We got a lot of information during the campaign about potential irregularities, people who say so-and-so helps us with our ballots or someone else who said, ‘Oh, someone votes for me,'” Crespo told me over the telephone. “It was just anecdotal, but I put it in the back of my mind. Then after the election when we saw the results I said, ‘Wait a second.’ It started to make sense more specifically into what happened.”
Crespo told Ladra he had gotten a call back from a prosecutor in the state attorney’s public corruption unit. They’re playing phone tag. He’s also spoken to other candidates who are considering legal challenges to the election but said they each may have to act separately.
I think he has a case, too. They all do. Especially if one looks at it together as a conspiracy. These boleteros do not work in a vacuum. They cannot get the list of absentee voters, which are only released to candidates and PACs. And Maroño, who was publicly supporting Trujillo and a bunch of others on his defacto “slate,” wasn’t likely working the ABs for one candidate only. That’s not how the system works. It’s much more effective if they work for five or six or more candidates at once. (You should still be taking notes).
Like Garcia and Commission Chairman Joe Martinez — who is also considering a legal challenge to the victory in ABs along by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez (who’d be forced into a much-needed runoff without those absentees) — Crespo says he doesn’t care about the election itself or the seat.
“This is more important than that. Trust me, I want to be wrong,” he said, and I know the feeling. “But I don’t think I am. I think there are a lot of things that are coming to light. And even if it makes no difference in this election, I want to be part of what stops this manipulation and fraud of absentee ballots.”
Join the ever-growing club.
Another AB queen and more fraud concerns added by Ladra on
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