Just imagine you at a car dealership and just got done signing the sales agreement on your dream car. You’re so excited to get the keys when you hear the notification for a new text message go off on your phone.
The salesman says, “All done. The car is yours. You should have received it on your phone.”
“On my phone?” You look down to see you have been messaged an image of the car you thought you were purchasing. “What is this?” you asked puzzled.
”That’s your car. It’s all yours. Can I interest you in our disaster recovery plan? In case you lose your phone or accidentally delete it, we can resend your car."
“This isn’t my car. This is a digital image of my car.” You shoot back growing frustrated now.
“That is absolutely your car. You just signed the sales agreement where you agreed to accept a digital image of your car. Would you like to see the fine print?”
As absurd is this sounds, this is actually the legal sleight of hand, Senator Blaise Ingoglia just introduced in Florida SB 1414 that will move Florida away from our current paper ballots to only using “ballot images” to determine who won our elections.
This is exactly the hell Georgia is currently fighting to get out of and the exact reason there still has been no justice on the 2020 election in that state.
The change is subtle and the devil is in the details on how the law would be implemented, but so far, the same steps that Georgia uses to certify would be REQUIRED BY LAW IN FLORIDA.
In current Florida law, after an election was certified, the counties would perform an “post election audit”. This could be a manual audit in house or use an independent audit of ALL THE VOTING SYSTEMS USED IN ALL PRECINCTS.
This legal sleight of hand being introduced by Senator Ingoglia new bill would require a “vote validation” before certification of the election. You may think, what could be wrong with that?
First, this would require a vendor called Clear Ballot that currently serves some larger counties in Florida be MANDATED TO ALL COUNTIES no matter their size. Most of Florida is made up of small rural counties that would find themselves having to purchase this expensive equipment that starts out at about $50,000.
But outside of the cost, this bill would completely remove an audit that under current law is up to the desecration of the locals on HOW to perform. Instead everyone would be moved to a “digital verification process.” One of the biggest things wrong with the Clear Ballot approach it relies on ballot images to do any any tabulation.
So what’s the point of a paper ballot if NO ONE WILL EVER LOOK AT THEM AGAIN??? As long as validation software says the election results are close to what the tabulators have given, then the election is OVER. And post election audits will be FORBIDDEN BY LAW and no one will be allowed to examine the paper ballots.
Oh the county may be required by law to store the paper ballots after the election. But if you ask anyone who has been doing election integrity in Florida since 2020, we were NEVER allowed to review those paper ballots.
You may be able to observe the digital images of the ballots, but as my little intro demonstrates…is that really your vote? Did all the ballot images represent real people? You will never know because post election audits will be FORBIDDEN and no one will be allowed to compare the results to the original paper ballots.
One of the bombshells being argued in Georgia’s courts, was the discovery of ballots being duplicated either by multiple scans or with copies of the ballot images. Hannity covered the issue happening in both Georgia and Arizona.
Georgians were recently shocked when their Supreme Court ruled a new common sense law was UNCONSTITUTIONAL. All the new law was trying to do was see if the number of paper ballots matched the number of ballot images. This was done for years prior to the systems changing in 2020.
When the digital ballot image is considered the vote BY LAW, the paper ballot becomes irrelevant.
And if you think that is too “conspiracy theory”, can you explain why Senator Ingoglia included the following in his bill?
The Florida’s Office of Election Crime and Security would be limited to only looking into “alleged criminal violation” and the part where they can currently look into “election irregularities” would be stricken.
What crime can be observed when one digital election system says it agrees with another digital election system and no one is allowed to do post elections audit to compare the results with the paper ballots?
Did I mention that the election vendor that stands to win big with this legislation, Clear Ballot, gets a majority of it’s current revenue from left-leaning states like Oregon, Washington, New York, Colorado, Virgina, and Maryland? Does Senator Ingoglia really think this will make elections safer in Florida?
The grass roots in Florida, primarily working through Defend Florida, have been actively shaping election law in our state for over 4 years now. We have all learned a-lot during that time and have been blessed to work together as a coalition of professional, independent organizations.
It really is a full year of work where we research issues, recommend amendments to current laws to fix them, get these submitted and sponsored during the winter. Then monitor legislation as it goes through committees, and then ultimately advocating which bills should be passed or defeated during a relatively short, but energetic legislative session in January, February, and March.
In Florida, most new bills will be passed in the month of March and signed into law by the governor during April and May. They then typically go into effect July 1st of the year they are passed.
You can monitor this page to see the election bills that currently being worked on and supported by the grass roots in Florida.
This is where we need your help….
Senator Ingoglia seems to be channelling Stalin as he wants to ignore who voted on a paper ballot and only focus on how the votes will be counted in SB 1414.
If you live in Citrus, Hernando, Sumter, or parts of Pasco counties this is your Florida Senator. We urge you call, email, write and post to Senator Ingoglia on X.com and voice your concern on this bill. He will weigh the concerns from his direct constituents far more than anyone else.
District Office
2943 Landover Blvd.
Spring Hill, FL 34608
(352) 666-5707
Senate VOIP: 41100
Legislative Aides: Hannah Christian, Jordyn Ivie, and Aubree Yorro
Tallahassee Office
306 Senate Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
(850) 487-5011
Senate VOIP: 5011
Email: Ingoglia.Blaise.web@flsenate.gov
Twitter/X handle: @GovGoneWild
The rest of Florida also needs to stand up and stop this bill NOW! Georgians are currently fighting to make their elections more like Florida, and SB 1414 would make our elections more like Georgia’s.
Please share this post and make your friends, family and neighbors aware of the shell game they are trying to pull with our elections in Florida.
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