MIAMI — The recruitment of the sham candidate began with a Facebook message at around 4 a.m. on May 15, 2020. “Call me,” a Florida legislator turned lobbyist wrote to an old friend. “I have a question for you.”
In November, José Rodríguez, an effective legislator who had crusaded for Florida to face the climate change crisis, lost to the Republican challenger, Ileana Garcia, by a mere 32 votes out of more than 215,000 that had been cast. Alex Rodriguez had received 6,382 votes and played the spoiler.It was a devastating loss for Florida Democrats in a year of Republican successes in the state. It was also the result of criminal behavior, prosecutors say.
“We will be investigating this matter fully and zealously, representing our client in court against these charges,” Chonillo said. Prosecutors said they had found no ties between her and the scheme by Artiles and Alexis Rodriguez. On Friday, state Sen. Wilton Simpson, the Florida Senate president, issued a joint statement with Garcia saying that they “support the ongoing efforts of law enforcement.”
On Thursday, Katherine Fernández Rundle, the state attorney for Miami-Dade County, a Democrat, noted that recruiting a sham candidate to deliberately influence an election was not illegal, unless the candidate was also secretly financed.At the center of the latest scandal is Artiles , who before his arrest this week was perhaps best known in Tallahassee, the state capital, for resigning from the Senate in 2017, after he cursed at and used a racist slur before a group of Black lawmakers.
Politico Florida tied the three candidates to dark money from two political committees that had sent hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of attack flyers to voters during the campaign. The only donor reported was an entity that listed a UPS box in Atlanta as its mailing address. The committees amended their financial reports after Election Day, changing the source of the money to a different donor, this time in Colorado.
now do dominion voting machines
Has anyone really noticed that the GOP attempt to divert attention from Russia's attempt to diffuse America's politics with China's lack of an attempt only to cry wolf with Trump's recent loss and now wants to cut voting requirements of the American people. How hypocritical!