Daytona Beach Commissioner Arrested for Vote Fraud

From WFTV.com:

Daytona Beach City Commissioner Derrick Henry and his campaign manager, Genesis Robinson, were arrested Wednesday, charged with committing absentee ballot fraud during Henry’s 2010 re-election campaign, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said.

The arrest of Henry and Robinson comes a little more than two months after Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall requested an investigation into irregularities in absentee ballot requests coming into her office. McFall brought her concerns to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office in August, prompting the Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office to immediately launch a joint investigation that ultimately led to the filing of a dozen felony charges against Henry and Robinson.

The investigation revealed that Henry and Robinson devised a strategy to boost Henry’s re-election bid by obtaining absentee ballots for numerous people, most of whom never requested the ballots. By law, residents are only allowed to request absentee ballots for themselves, immediate family members or for someone for whom they’re acting as legal guardian.

McFall filed the complaint in August after her office received a large number of requests for absentee ballots that were all sent from the same e-mail address. Based on the e-mail address, it appeared that the requests came from someone with an interest in the Daytona Beach City Commission Zone 5 race. Henry, the Zone 5 incumbent who was locked in a three-way primary race, was re-elected on Aug. 24.

The investigation revealed that between Henry and Robinson, they had requested a total of 92 absentee ballots through the elections office’s web site. Four of the absentee ballots were found at Henry’s house when investigators searched it in September. Investigators also recovered absentee ballot applications and receipts for some of the absentee ballots along with handbooks outlining Florida election laws.

Read the whole thing here.