Story out of Miami-Dade County, Florida
A 74-year-old woman tasked with opening envelopes sent by Miami-Dade County voters with their completed mail ballots was arrested Friday after co-workers caught her illegally marking ballots, resulting in an unknown — but small — number of fraudulent votes being cast for mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado.
Investigators linked Gladys Coego, a temporary worker for the county elections department, to two fraudulent votes, but they suspect from witness testimony that she submitted several more.
Coego, of Westchester, turned herself in to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Friday morning. She was charged with two felony counts of marking another person’s ballot. Coego was released after posting a $10,000 bond.
Coego’s job was to remove mail ballots from envelopes, count the number of pages and check for any tears or stains before someone else introduced them into an optical scanner to tabulate the votes. Miami-Dade started tallying mail ballots Monday, as allowed by Florida law.
According to Coego’s arrest affidavit, she sat by herself behind a back table in a room with about 80 other workers. Another temp worker, identified as “S. Tremmel,” saw her illicitly mark three ballots Tuesday, pulling a black pen out of her purse each time. She “would hide the pen in her purse whenever a supervisor or other employee came near,” Tremmel told investigators.
Regalado, a Republican, is running for the nonpartisan mayor’s post against incumbent Carlos Gimenez, who is also a Republican. As strong mayor, Gimenez appointed Elections Supervisor Christina White and is ultimately in charge of her department. Cont.
Story from - Miami Herald
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