Three Floridians have been arrested for voting fraud, Daily Beast reported on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 (story here).
Jay Ketcik, 63, Joan Halstead, 71, and John Rider, 61, all residents of The Villages, a retirement community, are accused of voting in Florida and also casting absentee ballots in other states in the 2020 election; if convicted, they could get prison terms.
Prosecutors allege Ketcik voted in Florida and Michigan, Halstead in Florida and New York, and Rider in Florida and out-of-state.
Ketcik and Halstead surrendered to police; Rider was apprehended at a cruise ship dock.
Ballots are secret, so there’s no way to know for certain who they voted for. All three are registered Republicans, and Ketcik and Halstead expressed support for Trump on social media. The Villages is 98% white and heavily Republican (details here). You probably could safely bet money that Trump got 6 votes from these 3 cheaters.
Halstead (photo above) is hard to figure out. Why risk jail to illegally vote in New York, of all places? Biden won 61% of the vote there, getting nearly 2 million more votes than Trump, so what difference does one illegal vote make? Did she think it would help Trump? Is she stupid?
A local TV station said (here), “Despite [these] arrests in Sumter County, very few Central Floridians have been prosecuted for casting multiple ballots, a News 6 review of court data reveals. Between 2000 and 2020 there were no prosecutions for that statute in Brevard, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties, court data indicates. Prosecutors in Volusia and Orange counties filed charges in only two cases during that same two-decade period.”
This is consistent with the findings of virtually every study done, i.e. that voting fraud is very rare in the United States. Despite that GOP legislatures are passing laws making it very difficult to vote. Of course, their claims of rampant voting fraud are a subterfuge; the real purpose of these laws of voter suppression, i.e. keeping legitimate voters (especially blacks) from voting.
This blog has posted voting fraud stories stemming from the 2020 election (you can find them by typing “voting fraud” in the search box on the front page). Without exception, all these cheaters have been Trump supporters. Why is that so?
I’m repeating myself, because I’ve written about this before, but my theory is they think Trump is God’s gift to America, and God wants them to cast extra votes for him, so that makes it okay (even if the law says it’s not okay). Call it hubris, arrogance, or whatever; these people think they’re right, and therefore have a right to disregard our laws. That was the mentality of the Capitol rioters, too. Some actually believed assaulting cops and storming the Capitol was patriotic.
What should we do with people like this? Well, in Texas, Crystal Mason wasn’t sure she could vote, so she asked a pollworker, who told her to cast a provisional ballot, so she did, and her provisional ballot wasn’t counted because she was ineligible to vote. For that, she got 5 years in prison. (Read about that here.)
These people did it intentionally, and their illegal votes were counted. So, to be fair they should get 10 years. However, under Florida law the max is 5 years. They shouldn’t get less, but probably will; most likely they’ll get probation and a fine. They’re white, Mason is black. You know how that works: Different strokes for different folks.
Update (1/5/22): A fourth resident of The Villages has been arrested for voting twice, in two states, in the 2020 election. (Read story here.)
Photo below: Golf carts at The Villages, Florida; note the “Patriot” license plate