Ballot Harvesting in Palm Beach County

By William J. Skinner

Harvesting ballots is a common practice in Florida and it is not strictly illegal in each and every instance.  I first became aware of the practice of planting and harvesting absentee ballots in Florida while I was researching my book: South Florida Election Law Handbook, published in 2014.  This article is a refresher to help you understand one section of the laws concerning vote-by-mail ballots and three situations that describe different ways this is done.

            Florida law (F.S. 101.62(4)(c)4) provides that individuals may request for absentee ballots for themselves and immediate family, which is defined as a spouse, child, parent, sibling, legal guardian, or grandparent. You need to read this section of the law. Florida law also requires that if one is requesting an absentee ballot for someone else, they must provide certain identifying information. A violation of this law (F.S. 104.047) constitutes a third degree felony.  Look up Florida Statutes on www.myflorida.com/floridastatutes and read the many voting methods and requirements for requesting ballots and turning them in at the time of an election in Chapter 101.  If you do not have a computer or smart phone, go to the library to use a computer.

            Over the years Florida has frequently revised its enforcement of election laws to allow certain party election workers to handle absentee ballots.  There are still several concerns.  How many ballots can be picked up from voters by candidates and delivered to the elections office?  What if the ballot collection worker represented an opponent of the voter’s choice on the ballot?  Would these ballots be delivered or tossed in the trash?  Has there been uniform enforcement of law and regulations pertaining to the details of handling these ballots? The name of these ballots has been changed to vote-by-mail ballots or mail-in ballots more recently and the word “absentee” is no longer used.

Belle Glade – 2009       This situation involved multiple political party workers in Belle Glade ordering ballots for voters and monitoring when these were delivered to the voters in 2009. Then the worker knocked on doors and tried to help the voter prepare the ballot and then take the ballot from the voter to be delivered to the election office or maybe not deliver it anywhere.  The five pages of details of the Executive Investigation conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are reviewed in the book beginning at page 292. 

            For several days, investigators tracked down voters and witnesses to try to determine what was going on.  In the end, there was no reversal of any election.  Some people lost their vote because the people who tried to help them vote probably took advantage of them.   This episode explains what investigators have to do to document a case.

Loxahatchee Groves - 2015   Loxahatchee Groves had a city election on March 10, 2015.  On that date 22 voters came to cast ballots at the only polling place and told the election officials that someone had ordered absentee ballots for them. When Keith Harris lost the city election he sued the city election board members and the Supervisor of Elections on March 26, 2015.  The case was active for over four years in the Circuit Court until a voluntary dismissal was entered on May 30, 2019 dismissing the remaining parties with Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher being dismissed earlier.

            During the early days of this case a Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) investigation was conducted.  On the date of the election 22 individuals that appeared at the election polls in person to vote complained to an elections poll worker that they received an unsolicited absentee ballot. Their information was documented and a list of these individuals was later provided to Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher for her review. In an effort to further the FDLE investigation, Bucher provided Special Agent (SA) Thomas a copy of the list containing the 22 individuals that appeared in person to vote on the day of the election along with copies of 153 absentee ballot request submission forms processed for the March 10th election. These forms memorialized the identity of those who absentee ballots were processed for during the time period of March 1, 2015 through March 4, 2015. These 153 forms represent a fraction of the 304 total ballots requested for this election.

            Following the interviews of several of the persons receiving the absentee ballots, the FDLE investigators concluded: “Steps taken by SA Thomas to unequivocally identify a suspect(s) or target(s) in this investigation yielded negative results, thus preventing the Office of the State Attorney from pursuing any criminal charges. According to ASA Marci Rex, a clear connection between the electronic source (computer type device) of where the request for the absentee ballots originated and its operator(s) would need to be determined in order to file and pursue a criminal conviction. A clear connection was not made in this case.”

            After this decision an effort was made by the investigators to determine the source of the devices used to request the ballots.  This led to the following conclusion in the investigative report: “In furtherance of this investigation, Special Agent (SA) D. Thomas after meeting with Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Marie Bucher, on March 12, 2015, was provided with internet protocol (IP) information for investigative purposes. Bucher requested this information from their (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office) online computer website vender (SOE Software) in response to SA Thomas' request to query certain computer database logs. The information provided revealed that the identified IP address was linked to over 100 online absentee voter ballot requests for the March 2015 election. The IP address was identified as a "Dynamic Internet Protocol address". SA Thomas learned that such IP addresses were derived from a pool of IP addresses and were assigned and reassigned as individuals' devices (computers, laptops, tablets, cellular telephones, etc.) logged on and off any particular computer network. The IP address identified in this investigation could have randomly been used by any number of internet users using any number of devices during the time period the more than 100 absentee voter ballot requests were made. As such, efforts to track the specific IP address for each of the absentee ballot email requests made became unsuccessful. On April 9, 2015, at approximately 10:00 a.m., SA Thomas, in further attempts to explore the possibility of identifying the IP address information he was provided, contacted SA W. Hernandez of FDLE's Computer Cyber Technology (Cybertech) Unit. SA Thomas, after explaining the circumstances regarding the IP address in question, requested SA Hernandez to make an additional attempt to obtain any available IP identification information. SA Hernandez, on April 17, 2015, informed SA Thomas via email communication that his efforts were met with negative results and that the IP address provided came back to a ‘dead end’.”  FDLE Case Number: MI-32-0049, Serial #: 26, 11/25/2015  More information about this case can be obtained from an article “Loxahatchee Groves councilman cooperating in absentee ballot probe” by Kristen M. Clark - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer, Thursday, March 12, 2015 Source of Post article was http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/local/loxahatchee-groves-councilman-cooperating-absentee-ballot-probe/eOc6HpGl8U9ZpA9UHCFwjJ/ See also Circuit Court file in the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, Case No.  50-2015-CA-003454-XXXX-MB

West Palm Beach – 2016  This case of ballot harvesting involved two candidates, one for state House, and one for County Commissioner.  The facts are extensive for this case and the Palm Beach Post assigned several reporters and photographers to research the election for an article published in 2017.  They reported their research at : https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/special-reports/winning-candidates-help-voters-fill-out-their-ballots/V0ieae6VcZNNWF6I9ylRdM/.  How the Post got the story?  Main authors were:  Alexandra Seltzer and  Lulu Ramadan.  Data reporter Mike Stucka, researcher Melanie Mena and staff writer Daphne Duret also contributed to this story.

             The research team reported the votes in three precincts as a small part of their extensive coverage of these election results.

PRECINCT 7186 Boynton Beach Civic Center	PRECINCT 7196 Temple Sinai, Delray Beach	PRECINCT 7174 Rolling Green Elementary, Boynton Beach
69% of all ballots were mail-in	62% of all ballots were mail-in	55% of all ballots were mail-in
378 total mail-in ballots	366 total mail-in ballots	135 total mail-in ballots
338 voted for Bernard	310 voted for Bernard	112 voted for Bernard
334 voted for Jacquet	302 voted for Jacquet	105 voted for Jacquet
August 30, 2016	Primary Election

Here is a series of comments from the authors of this extensive special article cited above. ‘For Bernard and Jacquet, the Aug. 30 primary meant outright victory. Nobody ran against them in the November general election.

“Powell comfortably beat Republican Ron Berman in November, and in his first few weeks as a state senator has introduced a few pieces of legislation.“One of them?  “A bill to make it easier to drop off vote-by-mail ballots.”

            Powell is Bobby Powell who was elected to the Florida Senate District 30 in November of 2016.  The Senate district does not include these same three precincts. So far Powell has not been able to get an amendment to Florida statutes to make it easier to drop off vote-by-mail ballots.  See Laws of Florida 2019-162 for amendments to F.S. 101.62 in 2019.  Protect your vote, read the election laws.

            The idea of ballot harvesting is gaining strength in states like California where the legislature approved it.  Florida voters must become aware of the consequences of harvesting ballots before more elections disappear under an avalanche of one party or the other taking advantage of loop holes. But ballot harvesting is illegal in North Carolina and many other states.  A Congressional election was ordered canceled after a lengthy Federal Court battle and done over because of ballot harvesting by a Republican in the 2018 election. 

DO THE DEMS HAVE A GOD PROBLEM?

By William J. Skinner

Political campaigns bring out the best and the worst in some people.  Listeners make up their minds about political promises based on their own understanding of what the candidates are saying during the political campaigns.  Listeners evaluate whether what is said based on their own experiences and learning, including their own religion.  Whether a politician’s promise is “good” or “bad,” will be at least partly dependent upon what the listener’s beliefs are at the time the promises are made known.

            The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  The part of this amendment that deals with religion contains the “establishment clause” and the “free exercise” clause.  This clearly says government cannot make laws that affect religion.

            In 2012, the Democratic Party had a debate and a vote at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia about putting God back in their national platform and a sizeable part of the hundreds of delegates booed the result.  In the 2016 platform, “God” was named in “God-given potential” in the preamble and by inference in the section on LBTG people.  It is not clear how many times the Democratic delegates booed at what provisions in 2016.

            Democrat candidates for President in 2020 have expressed views that present religious questions.  We as individuals or voters cannot stop them from having these views, but we can ask them to clarify those views and take those views into our own account when deciding whether we want to support or vote for a candidate office.

            In an article titled, “Democrats still haven’t faced their God problem,” by Salena Zito on

March 15, 2017 in the New York Post, the author writes,

“The Democratic Party has a God problem.  And over the last couple of decades, as its base became more educated, less religious and more urban, this problem has only grown.

“Some of this has to do with lower church attendance in cities versus rural areas, and the Democratic Party’s increasing reliance on urban voters. Some of it is the divisiveness of social or cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage. And the divide has seemingly sapped Democrats’ ability to communicate to religious Americans.

“Especially if those people of faith are white, according to Brad Chism, a longtime and respected Democratic strategist based in Mississippi.

“And that problem extends to the national media, who by and large are mostly Democrats, meaning you have these powerful forces who do not understand more than half of the people in this country,” he said.

“Chism makes a crucial point about what this means for American politics: Some of the greatest moral advancements in our country’s history have been accomplished largely through the influence of the church and churchgoing people, especially through the 20th century.

“You look at women’s suffrage, civil rights, the abolition of slavery and all of these massive other changes — religion and religious people have played a role in moving society toward a higher plane,” said Chism.

“We’ve seen that recently as well, but a lot of progressives and liberal Democrats don’t see the role of religion in society, and that is a big mistake,” he said. 

See  https://nypost.com/2017/03/15/democrats-still-havent-faced-their-god-proble

In a more recent article by Caleb Parke for Fox News,, the author states,

“Political pundits said Democrats have a God problem and their latest move shows they are taking steps to solve it.

“President Trump solidified the evangelical vote in 2016 but Democrats hope to make up for the sins of Hillary Clinton's campaign, which was criticized for its lack of outreach to faith groups in the last election. The Democratic National Committee recruited a far-left religious outreach director and is launching a round of listening sessions with faith leaders leading up to the 2020 election.

“WILL TRUMP SOLIDIFY MORE CHRISTIAN VOTERS IN 2020? THIS EVANGELICAL LEADER THINKS SO

“The DNC hired former Washington, D.C. anti-Trump pastor, Rev. Derrick Harkins, who held a similar position in 2012 and has been the senior vice president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, which recently celebrated "rejoicing in the queerness of God."

“We take seriously the relationships that we have with faith communities around this country," Harkins told Religion News Service, adding that faith "will be a priority going into 2020, but even more importantly, beyond 2020.”

“ANTI-TRUMP PROFESSOR ACCUSES GOP OF TRYING TO ‘PIMP GOD’

“Over the past few elections, Democrats have alienated themselves further from religious voters, partly in due to stances it takes on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, not to mention its focus on urban communities that tend to have lower church attendance than their rural counterparts. While Trump took 80 percent of the white evangelical vote, Democratic presidential hopefuls are gearing up for more faith outreach, especially in historically black churches and within minority communities.”

See https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2020-election-faith-democratic-party-religious-left

            The D. James Kennedy Ministries newsletter, Impact, for March 2020, discusses the Hallmark of American Freedom which is the consent of the governed. Executive Frank Wright says the progressives have refused to accept the result of the 2016 election and they are planning to steal your vote in 2020.  Wright goes on to list the Leftwing tactics they will use. 

            Starting with get rid of the electoral college, they move to spoiling the integrity of voter registrations, to manipulation of the election ballot, to risks of recounts, and with ballot harvesting.  All of these efforts will be coordinated.

            These same tactics are mentioned by the American Civil Rights Union, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and Judicial Watch among many non-profit groups who spend some of their resources and time on protecting the consent of the governed.  The 2020 election will be a turning point for upholding the American experiment.

            It may help to know the difference from right and wrong.  Do you?  Are you supporting the efforts of these groups or ignoring them?