posty 2,780 Posted October 28, 2016 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article111029767.html A 74-year-old woman tasked with opening envelopes sent by Miami-Dade County voters with their completed mail ballots was arrested Friday after co-workers caught her illegally marking ballots, resulting in an unknown but small number of fraudulent votes being cast for mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado. Investigators linked Gladys Coego, a temporary worker for the county elections department, to two fraudulent votes, but they suspect from witness testimony that she submitted several more. Coego, of Westchester, turned herself in to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Friday morning. She was charged with two felony counts of marking another persons ballot. Her bond was set at $10,000. In a separate election-fraud case, authorities also arrested a second woman for unlawfully filling out voter-registration forms on behalf of United for Care, the campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Florida. The Miami-Dade state attorneys office accused Tomika Curgil, 33, of filling out forms for five people without their consent. She also submitted at least 17 forms for people who apparently dont exist and several forms for people who are dead. Police officers arrested Curgil at her Liberty City home Friday morning and charged her with five felony counts of submitting false voter-registration information. Her bond was set at $125,000. Our law enforcement effort against these election law violators was swift and resulted in an immediate arrest of the wrongdoers, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, a Democrat, said in a statement. The elections department was quick to detect and report these violations to our task force. Anyone who attempts to undermine the democratic process should recognize that there is an enforcement partnership between the elections department and our prosecution task force in place to thwart such efforts and arrest those involved. Now we need to move forward with the election. The cases were investigated by her offices public corruption task force, which comprises police officers from several jurisdictions, including Miami-Dade, Miami, Miami Beach, Doral and the Miami-Dade school district. The task force is headed by prosecutor Tim VanderGiesen. The arrests come as Republican Donald Trump has claimed the presidential election is rigged to favor Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence of the widespread, systematic election fraud that would be required to swing a national election, though the Miami-Dade arrests show small, isolated cases of perpetrated or attempted fraud exist. Coegos job was to remove mail ballots from envelopes and check for any paper tears before someone else introduced them into an optical scanner to count the votes. Miami-Dade started tallying mail ballots Monday, as allowed by Florida law. Investigators say Coego picked out ballots in which voters had left the county mayoral race blank and bubbled in Regalados name. Sometimes, the marking was obvious because she used a different color pen than the actual voter. As a normal part of their working procedures, all Election Support Specialists were prohibited from bringing any other pens or pencils into the ballot sorting room, the state attorneys office said in a statement announcing the arrests. It appeared that Ms. Coego concealed a black ink pen in her purse and brought it into the ballot sorting room. A colleague who spotted Coegos illicit voting beginning Monday alerted their supervisor, who on Tuesday witnessed Coego marking a ballot. Caught red-handed, Coego admitted what she had done, though she didnt tell investigators why. Authorities did not tie her to Regalados or any other candidates campaign. I don't know this person. It has nothing to do with me, Regalado told the Miami Herald. Weve looked into it. The police have looked into it. There are no ties. A man who answered Coegos door Friday morning and identified himself as her son-in-law would not give his name. But he described Coego as a grandmother. I dont have anything else to say, he said, asking for privacy. We know nothing. Its too fresh. In due time the truth will be revealed. Aimee Garcia, Coegos 55-year-old neighbor from across the street, called Coego a very honorable and respected woman who takes out neighbors trash if theyre out and cares for an elderly woman a few doors down. Two other neighbors described Coego as a widow who used to clean schools at night with her husband before he died a few years ago. Shes a beautiful human being and neighbor. On many occasions, she has taken care of my son, Garcia said. There has to be an error somewhere. Coego does not appear to have contributed to or been paid by any Miami-Dade or Florida candidate, according to county and state campaign-finance databases. She voted by mail in the Aug. 30 primary election, election records show, and has already sent in her mail ballot for the Nov. 8 general. Coego is registered without political-party affiliation. Regalado, a Republican, is running for the nonpartisan mayors post against incumbent Carlos Gimenez, who is also a Republican. As strong mayor, Gimenez appointed Elections Supervisor Christina White and is ultimately in charge of her department. I want to ensure the voters of Miami-Dade County that the integrity of the electoral process is intact because our procedures work, White said in a statement. While disappointed by these incidents, I am very proud of the safeguards the Elections Department has in place to prevent these fraudulent attempts, and I commend the employees who remained vigilant just as they were trained to do. On Thursday, Regalado sued to boot Gimenez off the ballot, contending he should be disqualified because he initially wrote the wrong date on his candidate-qualifying check. She said Friday that the arrests were further evidence that Gimenez has done a poor job overseeing the elections department, which she contends is plagued by irregularities. A recent poll showed Gimenez crushing Regalado, a sitting Miami-Dade school board member and the daughter of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, by 22 percentage points. In the second fraud case, Curgil ostensibly registered voters for People United for Medical Marijuana, the political committee financing the Yes campaign for Amendment 2. The elections department flagged one of Curgils batches of forms as suspicious because all the registrations appeared to have been filled out and signed by the same person. After running the names, the department found several of the listed voters were deceased. Investigators placed Curgil, a registered Democrat, under surveillance on Oct. 18, the last day to register. They didnt see her sign anyone up yet she submitted 22 registration forms the next day. Five real people whose names appeared on the forms told the authorities they had no idea the forms were submitted under their names. Some of them were already longtime registered voters. In some cases, all the information on the forms was wrong except for voters name and birth date. Its unclear where Curgil might have obtained those details. Like Coego, Curgils name does not appear as a contributor or payee on county or state campaign-finance databases. Ben Pollara, who heads the medical-marijuana campaign, said the political committee hired a field-operations company, Pharos Organizing, to register voters. Pharos paid canvassers by the hour, not the by form, Pollara said, but workers were expected to meet certain targets to be hired week after week. Weve submitted a little more than 15,000 forms that we believe to be good voter registrations across the state, Pollara said. Then we submitted another few thousand voided that we believed not to be good but that we were legally obligated to submit. The campaign paid Pharos $200,000 between Sept. 23 and Oct. 17. A message left at the companys Washington headquarters was not immediately returned. Florida law requires registration forms to be turned in once theyve been filled out, even if campaigns suspect the information to be wrong. Some marijuana campaign canvassers were fired for submitting bad forms, according to Pollara, who added the campaign reached out to prosecutors Friday to offer any needed cooperation. Every time people return VRs to their managers, theres a process in place where the managers would check them for having similar handwriting or signatures, would check them against the existing voter file, he said. But some bad ones slip through the cracks. Thats why canvassers are require to initial the forms, so authorities can identify who submitted it which is how Curgil was caught. A man who answered the door at Curgils maroon-and-beige stucco home in Liberty City said her family wouldnt discuss her Friday morning arrest. But an acquaintance who asked not to be named said Curgil called a family member Friday morning after dropping her son and daughter off at school to say she thought she was being followed. Instead of heading home, she circled her block, and police pulled her over about one block away. Her family was stunned and confused when police came to the house afterward to say they had a warrant for her arrest. They came to the house saying she was a suspect. How? said the acquaintance. She has never been in any trouble with the law. State records show Curgil had never been charged with a crime before Friday. She grew up in South Florida, and earned a GED from the Lindsay Hopkins Technical Institute, according to the acquaintance. Curgil is also a licensed security guard in Florida. She was looking for work in the field, and about two weeks ago decided to make ends meet by working temporarily for an elections contractor, according to the acquaintance. Curgil, the acquaintance said, was updating information in the system so there wouldnt be any complications when [voters] go to vote. Curgil had said nothing about medical marijuana. She told me she had a job for a couple of weeks for the election. She was getting signatures from people in the streets. How is that fraud? the acquaintance said. She takes care of her family. She raises her kids. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
edjr 6,732 Posted October 28, 2016 those crafty illegals Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rholio 339 Posted October 28, 2016 Proof Republicans cheat as much as Democrats. Ban both parties. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IGotWorms 4,060 Posted October 28, 2016 2 out of 350,000,000. Now I'm convinced Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
crackattack 520 Posted October 29, 2016 A few here a few there, who cares. We'll never know for sure how much it happens because liberals will yell racism!#!@!! if you want id's or laws to help create a fair/honest election. It's madness. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites