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January 22, 2024

The Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS) was created by Governor Ron DeSantis to receive and investigate election-related complaints.  In most cases, the Office subsequently refers the complaints to appropriate county or state law enforcement entities.  A few days ago (January 15, 2024), the OECS issued its latest annual report.

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Left-wing media will tell you that the agency did not find much fraud.  Rather, it spent taxpayer funds to harass and confuse minority voters.  But don’t believe it: the findings in the report are serious and disturbing.

In addition to investigations of people who voted when they were not qualified to do so, the Office expanded its quest to third-party voter registration organizations (known as 3PVROs) and to other organizations that have circulated fraudulent petitions, which “have plagued the state for years.”

Third-party registration organizations

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About 1,900 third-party registration organizations operate in the state of Florida.  Those entities operate mostly on the left side of the fence, and often with shady and illegal workers.  Here is an example from the OECS Report: a collection agent, who was working for the Florida Democrat party and “Florida Rising Together,” submitted 1,460 forms to a Florida election office in the three months between 1/8/22 and 4/7/22.  An alert election supervisor suspected that the voter applications were fraudulent based on a comparison of voter information on the forms with that on file.  The matter was referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and is under active investigation.

Another third-party registrant is Hard Knocks Strategies, LLC.  OECS has levied “multiple five-figure fines” on Hard Knocks “for wanton disregard of statutory obligations.”  In addition, several of its agents have been arrested for falsifying registration applications in Lee and Charlotte Counties.  Yet the organization seems to thrive.

Recently, the State Attorney’s Office found that Hard Knocks “conducts no or limited background checks” for agents “who are asked to handle sensitive information” — including names, birthdates, last four digits of Social Security numbers, and signature exemplars.  One of the workers is a “fifteen-time convicted felon” who was temporarily out on bond related to two different charges.  While out of jail, he issued numerous phony registrations.

Hard Knocks also tried to qualify over 2,900 voters by submitting registration forms after the statutory deadline.  For this, it has paid nearly $50,000 in fines.  Those fines would have been much higher were it not for statutory penalty caps in place at the time of the violations.

According to a LinkedIn account, Hard Knocks has over 3,000 employees.  How does the organization pay for such a large payroll?  Redbroward.com says that George Soros gave the left-wing registrant millions of dollars in recent years.

Here is how the Soros beneficiary describes itself: