FBI Investigating Hoax Letters to Voters in Florida

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Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 05:17 pm

Federal officials are investigating yet another attempt to suppress the vote in Florida. Florida State officials issued a statewide warning on this latest scam. The FBI is working with The Florida Department of Law Enforcement to find the source of hoax letters received by voters in several Florida counties.

According to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, voters in several counties report receiving similar letters. The counties include: Brevard, Broward, Collier, Clay, Escambia, Hillsborough, Indian River, Jackson, Lee, Liberty, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pinellas, St. Lucie, Seminole, Sumpter and Volusia counties.

Voters in Central Florida and many other parts of the state are getting letters that question their citizenship. The letters look like they are from official election offices, but they are fake.

Local 6 reports that the voters who received the letters so far are “white, registered Republicans who consistently vote in elections.” Seminole County Supervisor of elections, Mike Ertel, told Local 6:

“You should not expect a letter from your elections office saying, ‘You’re not registered to vote, please don’t go to the polls.’ That’s ridiculous.”

Chris Cate, the communications director for Florida’s Department of State told Local 6, “We are working with the state’s supervisors of elections as well as law enforcement to find the source of these letters and put a stop to them. We have provided all of the information we have received to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

The letter contains the election’s name, the resident’s name and address, and a warning casting doubt on the voter’s citizenship. The letter goes on to tell the recipient they will not be eligible to vote unless the letter is returned with an enclosed form within 15 days.

The letter looks official enough to fool some voters. “It looks official,” a Central Florida resident said. “I would think they were full of it because I would ask for someone to prove it,” said another voter when showed a copy of the fraudulent letter.

Watch the video report below.

According to News 4 the letters are postmarked in Seattle Washington.

Florida voters who receive letters postmarked from Seattle Washington, but appear to be from the Elections office, should not open the letter because State officials would like to examine the document for finger prints.

The Florida Division of Elections urges anyone receiving one of the letters to contact its voter fraud hotline at 877-868-3737 or visit Election.dos.state.fl.us.

Update:
Lenny Curry, Chair of the Florida GOP tweeted the following:

Obviously, Mr. Curry didn’t bother to read the article, which pointed out at the time of reporting that the letters in question had gone to Republicans.

It’s also obvious that Mr. Curry doesn’t understand the meaning of maintaining the integrity of the electoral system.

Voter suppression is as Anti-American as it gets, regardless of the political orientation of the victim.