Florida Residents Allegedly Cast Multiple Votes in 2020 Election Spanning Several States
Newly uncovered court documents revealed on Tuesday that three Florida residents were arrested and charged with voter fraud.
Jay Ketcik, Joan Halstead and John Rider, residents of The Villages, Florida, face one count each of voting multiple times in the 2020 general election, WKMG-TV in Orlando reported. This type of voter fraud is classified as a third-degree felony and is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Ketcik, 63, allegedly voted by mail in Florida last October and attempted to cast an absentee ballot in his home state of Michigan, according to the court records. Halstead, 71, allegedly voted in person and also attempted to cast an absentee ballot in New York. Both individuals were arrested after turning themselves in at the Sumter County Jail on outstanding charges.
Rider, 61, on the other hand, was arrested on December 3 at the Port Canaveral, Florida, cruise ship terminal. It is unclear if he was attempting to board a ship. The details of his alleged voter fraud have not been disclosed, but prosecutors indicated in the records that he attempted to vote in Florida and in another state.
Despite living in the same town, the investigations into their alleged fraud have found that the three men most likely do not know each other and were not working in tandem, according to the court documents.
Available court records do not mention which candidates the three voted for in the 2020 general election, but voter registration records indicate that they are each registered as Republicans. Facebook pages belonging to Ketcik and Halstead reportedly shared posts in support of former President Donald Trump.
Attempts by Newsweek to contact Ketcik, Halstead and Rider were unsuccessful.
"Multiple voting is unlawful," Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, told WKMG-TV. "It isn't a crime to be registered to vote in more than one state, as long as you only vote in one."
Florida has been a member of the Electron Registration Information Center since 2019. According to Pushaw, this allows the state "to crosscheck voter registration data with 30 other member states in order to identify duplicate registrations and outdated records from voters who have moved or passed away, leading to cleaner and more accurate voter registration rolls."
"Though the system is not perfect," she continued, "it does help ensure election integrity and deter potential fraud."
Though voter fraud has been pushed by Trump as a widespread problem that cost him the presidency in 2020, neither the former president nor his allies have evidence to support the claim. A report from 2007 found that Americans were more likely to be struck by lightning than to impersonate someone else while voting.
