Trump's campaign chief registered to vote in 2 states Amy Sherman, Miami Herald
Miami President Donald Trump has called for a national investigation into
voter fraud, including people who registered to vote in two states despite the
fact that his campaign chief registered in both Florida in New York. The
voter registration of Stephen Bannon drew a complaint during the campaign from
a group that opposed Trump, but ultimately Florida election officials dropped
the complaint. On Wednesday, the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office
removed Bannon from the voter roll based on information received from the
New York City Board of Elections, said Ron Turner, a Sarasota elections
official. Bannon never voted in Sarasota County. Bannon registered to vote in
Miami
but never voted there. In August, Bannon switched his voter registration to
Sarasota County. The global activist group Avaaz filed a complaint with the
Florida Division of Elections on Oct. 19, claiming Bannon didn't actually live
at the Sarasota County address. The address in Sarasota County was at the
home of Breitbart News writer Andrew Badaloto. Bannon ran the conservative news
outlet until August. But Bannon didn't vote in Sarasota County either.
On Oct. 14, he registered to vote at an address on West 40th Street in New York
City, according to Thomas Connolly, a spokesman for the New York State
Board of elections. Bannon remains registered to vote in New York and voted in
the Nov. 8 election, said Barbara Brunson, a clerk at the New York City
Board of Elections. He voted by mail. Florida Division of Elections deputy
counsel Lydia Atkinson wrote in a Jan. 11 letter to the person that filed the
complaint that the state would take no further action after looking into it.
"These allegations are neither facially sufficient or do not set out an incident
of 'election fraud' as defined," she wrote. Kendall Coffey, a Democrat and
election law expert in Florida, said voters commonly don't take the time to
cancel a voter registration when they move and re-register in a new location.
That's common for college students, for example. "It is not a crime to be
registered in two states as long as, at the time of each registration, the
voter's residency was claimed truthfully," said Coffey, a former U.S. attorney
in Miami. "Residency is principally a matter of the voter's intent as long as
there is some accompanying physical movement to the new location. If one
intends the new location to be his or her residence, and has a residence in the
new jurisdiction to which movement has been made, courts will usually find
that to be sufficient. Trump tweeted Wednesday morning: "I will be asking for a
major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote
in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are
dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen
up voting procedures! Trump has repeatedly claimed widespread national voter
fraud, but there is no evidence to support his claims. On Nov. 27, he tweeted
that he "won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted
illegally. The fact-checking website PolitiFact rated his claim Pants on Fire.
Although there has been no evidence of national voter fraud, there have been
isolated local cases. In Miami, two women were arrested for voter fraud in
October. Gladys Coego, a temporary worker at the Miami-Dade elections office
tasked with opening envelopes sent by voters, was accused of illegally
completing
mail ballots. In an unrelated case, Tomika Curgil was charged with unlawfully
filling out voter-registration forms on behalf of United for Care, a group
that supported the medical marijuana amendment. Both cases remain pending.
