ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida election officials are hunting for snowbird voter fraud in the 2020 election, combing through records to uncover people who cast ballots in multiple states.
Voter fraud is rare, and the tiny number of potentially fraudulent votes out of the more than 10 million cast in Florida wouldn’t have changed the results.
But election officials say they want to send a message to anyone thinking of voting more than once in an election. Florida is home to a large number of seasonal residents with multiple addresses who could try to mail in a ballot in one state and vote in person in another.
“You commit fraud in the state of Florida, and we will do everything possible to catch and charge you,” said Wesley Wilcox, president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections’ association. “One of the benefits of charging these people is it’s a deterrent. It may take me a year to catch you, but I will catch you.”
It’s not illegal to be registered to vote in multiple places, but casting more than one ballot in a federal election can land a person in serious legal trouble. In Florida, it’s a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
In recent weeks, three people who live in or near The Villages have been arrested. Jay Ketcik, 63, Joan Halstead, 72, and John Rider, 61, are accused of casting a ballot in Florida and in northern states, according to court records.
It is unclear which candidate the three voted for or whether they knew each other. State voter records show Halstead and Ketcik are registered Republicans. Rider has no party affiliation.
The three did not return messages seeking comment.
Social media posts supporting former President Donald Trump can be found on Facebook pages appearing to belong to Halstead and Rider. WKMG-TV reported that a Facebook page appearing to belong to Ketcik also had pro-Trump posts, although the page seems to have been deleted.
The Villages is a bastion of Trump support with 67% of Sumter County voters favoring him in the 2020 election.
The state’s Division of Elections flagged six potential instances of multiple ballots being cast by people who live in Lake County, Supervisor of Elections Alan Hays said. That information has been turned over to the state attorney’s office, he said.
He said he didn’t know the party affiliation of the six people, and it wouldn’t have any bearing on how the cases are handled.
“If you vote in Florida and I think you voted somewhere else, I am going to turn you in,” Hays said. “If one person votes in two different places, that is one person too many.”
Osceola County election officials identified seven cases that they thought warranted further investigation, said Kari Ewalt, a spokesperson for Supervisor of Elections Mary Jane Arrington.
Three of those cases involved registered Republicans, two were registered Democrats and two had no-party affiliation, she said.
Election officials forwarded the cases to state prosecutors but received no response, Ewalt said. The information was then sent to the FBI.
Mark Ard, a spokesperson for the Florida Division of Elections, said in an email he didn’t have details Thursday on the state’s efforts, how many potential cases of fraud have been identified and what prompted the review.
Election supervisors in Orange and Seminole counties said they haven’t sent any cases of people voting more than once to state prosecutors.
People in Central Florida are rarely charged with casting multiple ballots.
No prosecutions occurred from 2000-2020 for that statute in Brevard, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties, according to a review by WKMG. In Volusia and Orange counties, charges were filed for only two cases during that same period, the television station found.
In 2019, Florida joined the Electronic Registration Information Center, a system that allows election officials to crosscheck voting records in 29 states and the District of Columbia, said Wilcox, the elections supervisor in Marion County.
Before, it was much more difficult to detect people who vote more than once and keep voting files updated, he said.
The list of participating states includes prime sources of snowbirds, such as Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. New York and New Jersey don’t participate in ERIC, which is a nonprofit organization that states can choose to join.
The Villages cases were handled by Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Bill Keen, who declined to comment, citing an active investigation.
During the campaign, Trump sparked controversy when he suggested people in North Carolina vote twice — once in person and once by mail — as a way to test the system.
“Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote,” Trump said in September 2020. “If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.”
A campaign spokesperson clarified on Fox News that Trump was encouraging people to ensure their vote is tabulated — not cast two ballots.
Trump won Florida by more than 371,000 votes in 2020.
Chris Anderson, supervisor of elections in Seminole County, said he hasn’t found any instances of people voting more than once, but it’s on his radar.
“We are not playing around,” he said. “If we catch this crap, you are going to go to jail. It’s not if. It is when.”
