Orlando Mayor indicted and suspended in election case

In a day of swift and stunning developments triggered by four grand jury indictments, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer was charged with violating state absentee ballot law during last year's mayor's race and quickly removed from office.

Dyer; his campaign manager Patti Sharp, accused ballot broker Ezzie Thomas and Circuit Judge Alan Apte braved a phalanx of news reporters at the jail this morning as they entered a booking area at the county jail to be fingerprinted and processed.

In a day of swift and stunning developments triggered by four grand jury indictments, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer was charged with violating state absentee ballot law during last year's mayor's race and quickly removed from office.

Dyer; his campaign manager Patti Sharp, accused ballot broker Ezzie Thomas and Circuit Judge Alan Apte braved a phalanx of news reporters at the jail this morning as they entered a booking area at the county jail to be fingerprinted and processed.



http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/orl-asec-dyerstory031105,0,7150.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

Harris? forgetaboutit.

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They are charged with "ballot brokering" which basically means paying someone to collect absentee ballots.

Here's the story: Ezzie Thomas is a political consultant who has long been hired by Democratic and nonpartisan candidates (including now Senator Mel Martinez when he ran for Orange County Chairman and current Secretary of State Glenda Hood when she ran for Mayor of Orlando -- both nonpartisan races). Thomas' particular area of expertise is in getting African Americans to vote, often by absentee ballot.

In 1998, the State Legislature passed a law that made "ballot brokering" illegal. That is, you could no longer pay someone to pick up absentee ballots. Dyer's campaign did so, so now he, his campaign manager, the consultant and a judge who also paid the consultant in 2002 are now indicted on a 3rd degree felony. There is not -- at least as yet -- evidence that there was anything wrong with these ballots, just that Thomas was paid to pick them up.

This was really dumb on their part, because they all should have known the law. But, it's a shame. Buddy Dyer is a good man.

on edit: the news just reported that the statute of limitations has run out for Glenda Hood and Mel Martinez, so the grand jury didn't even consider indicting them.

He seems to skirt around Florida's Sunshine Laws, being very secretive.

he does have at least one close advisor that I think is sleazy, but I think that Dyer is honorable and well intentioned.

What I want to know is why Crotty wasn't indicted. That mobility 20/20 project of his paid Ezzie Thomas, too.

BWA-HA-HA
ROTFLMAO

Crotty is a Republican. Indicting a Republican. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.

although, apparently, Alan Apte is the sacrificial republican in the deal. All the others who hired Thomas seem to be off the hook for some reason.

I just read a story yesterday that said the payment was that the voter got the value of a postage stamp. If that's still all there is to this, then that is complete bullshit.

And changed party affiliations afterwards? I remember he was on stage with John Kerry when he came to town and I thought "What's that Republican doing up there?". I think this man just learned what happens when you try to leave the gang. I don't think he's innocent. I just think he would have been more protected and this wouldn't have happened if he didn't have that (D) hanging around his neck and kept the (R).

Pity he was on stage with John Kerry. That can't have helped.

Dyer has always been a Democrat. He was a state senator before running for AG in 2002. He never worked for Mel Martinez.

Looks like the original poster chose a flakey Democratic politician to hightlight.

I scanned articles about this, noted reference to Ezzie Thomas, who surely worked for Mel Martinez.

Ezzie not only worked for Mel Martinez, he also worked for Glenda Hood.

So if he did 'ballot collecting' for Dyer, you can be sure he did for the Repugs too.

Now the real problem with ballot collecting is not collecting the ballots. It's how guys like Ezzie go about collecting the ballots. Here's the scam. These guys focus on elderly and preferably illiterate, black people. They go into their homes and 'help' them fill out their ballots. Then the nice man takes care of everything and even delivers the ballot for them. In the meantime the nice man, votes for whoever is paying him. That's how it works in FL.

They did the same thing in Micanopy. A guy named Remzey Samarrai did the ballot collecting around there.



Politics and Sleaze Envelop Orlando
By Andrew Gumbel
The Independent, 27 October 2004

http://www.virtualboricua.org/Docs/ti01.htm



FDLE Accused Of Intimidating Black Voters
Associated Press
July 17, 2004

http://www.globalaging.org/elderrights/us/2004/intimidateeth.htm

It goes a LONG way in explaining what happened, which I had heard in bits and pieces earlier. I had always associated Florida ballot irregularities with Republicans for years, and it looks as if that's still the problem. Also, had heard _{Jeb Bush} had actual cops going to voters' homes and intimidating them, and this article definitely assists that view:

What makes the troubles facing the two men particularly sinister is that they are declared Kerry supporters, with the power to bring in hundreds if not thousands of votes for the Democratic Party. The investigations are being conducted by the state police, known as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), which reports directly to Governor Jeb Bush, brother of President George Bush.

The Republicans, naturally, deny the investigations are politically motivated. But even they acknowledge that a chill has spread through Orlando’s overwhelmingly Democratic black voting community after a flurry of unannounced visits by armed state police to at least 52 homes whose mostly elderly residents had signed up for an absentee ballot with Mr Thomas’s help.

The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men have done wrong. The media has aired official allegations ranging from vote fraud to campaign finance irregularities to racketeering, but no charges have been brought, despite exhaustive investigations. A grand jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters’ union concluded that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing the case.
(snip)

The allegations seem particularly absurd because such practices are absolutely par for the course for both parties. “A 37 cent postage stamp is a very interesting definition of racketeering,” Mr Egan said. “Now, it’s well known that most absentee ballots come out of the white community ... I seriously doubt the police would behave in the same way in a white community.”

As it happens, Mr Thomas had been been hired before by Republican candidates to perform exactly the same services he provided for Mr Dyer, without falling foul of the law. Among his past clients are two names with particular resonance in the 2004 presidential race. One is Mel Martinez, the Bush administration’s outgoing Housing Secretary who is now running for the Florida Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Democrat, Bob Graham. (Mr Thomas helped Mr Martinez run for chair of the Orange County commission a few years ago.) And the other is Glenda Hood, who was mayor of Orlando for 12 years before being appointed Jeb Bush’s Secretary of State, the office responsible for running Florida’s elections.
(snip)

This really helps out-of-state people get a clearer understanding. It's ALSO the second straight Presidential election in Florida in which I've heard of the cops being used to intimidate people in connection to voting. Too damned bad some Republicans aren't going to jail for this.

Thanks for the 2nd link. It backs up anyone's suspicion of WHY Florida had ARMED cops going into people's neighborhoods and homes to ask them about absentee ballots. It would be impossible to claim that wasn't intimidation while keeping a straight face.

After graduation, Dyer returned to Florida to work as an environmental engineer. He later enrolled at the University of Florida Law School, where he was named Editor-In-Chief of the University of Florida Law Review. He was honored with membership in the Order of the Coif, an honor reserved for the top 10 percent of the graduating class, and became a member of Phi Delta Phi, a society that promotes high standards of professional ethics. Dyer also earned membership in the prestigious Florida Blue Key for exemplary service and leadership. He graduated with honors in 1987 and received the highest score on the Florida Bar Exam that year.

In 1992, Dyer ran for the Florida State Senate and won; he was re-elected by the people of Central Florida in 1996 and 2000. Dyer's outstanding service was recognized by his colleagues who elected him to serve as the State Senate Democratic Leader for three years.

When Governor Jeb Bush announced his appointment of three-term Mayor Glenda Hood as Florida’s Secretary of State in December 2003, Dyer geared up against seven other candidates for the special mayoral election in February 2003. The field was eventually narrowed to two candidates, with Dyer winning the February 25 run-off. He was sworn in on February 26, 2003.

http://www.cityoforlando.net/elected/mayor/bio.htm

So I guess your conspiracy theory doesn't float.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050311/BREAKINGNEWS/50311005

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-asec-dyerstory031105,1,1620215.story?coll=orl-home-specialbreaking&ctrack=1&cset=true


Whattaya know.

Edit: What I meant was, mea culpa. I thought it was Dyer who was former republican. Sorry, I was on assignment all day and didn't get much radio. I still saw him with Kerry and thought then that he was a former (R). I dont' live in Orange County, so I didn't pay that much attention to who's running for Dog Catcher.

I'm still trying to figure out why I had him pegged for an (R) for so long. I have to admit that I didn't pay as much atention to our elected officials as much previously as I do now.

edit: Man, am I an idiot. I can't even type.

Florida as a very strange character who has lived as a "Democrat" in Miami former Mayor Alex Penelas. He could NOT have stabbed Al Gore any harder in the back, and the Democratic Party, than he did in the 2000 Presidential campaign, and in ALL the events leading up to and surrounding the vote recount in Miami-Dade.



There ARE some defective, and completely questionable people posing as Democrats in Florida. Remember Theresa LaPore who claimed to be a Democrat!

By the way, welcome to D.U. :hi: :hi:

LePore, a lifelong Democrat, has been at this her entire life. She began working in the Palm Beach elections office in 1971 at the age of 16. Election work is in her blood. She is the daughter of a former West Palm Beach commissioner.
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/16/palm_beach/index1.html

Brill's Content reporter Seth Mnookin, who covered LePore when he was a reporter for the Palm Beach Post, paints a picture of the now-famous canvassing board member as a dedicated, deliberate public servant who was brought down by her desire to do the right thing. "If she had been someone who wasn't worried so much about getting it right, and wasn't worried about doing right by the people she represents, none of this would have happened. It's just one of those situations where you make things worse by trying to overthink a problem," he says

E-voting

Florida’s “fixed it” farce

By Bev Conover

.......While throughout the madness following the Nov. 7 election, LaPore was repeatedly portrayed—mainly by Republicans who wanted to stop the manual recount—as a loyal, true-blue Democrat, Jake Tapper in his book, "Down & Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency," noted that LaPore originally was a registered Republican, then in 1979 re-registered as an independent. "When a third party formally registered as 'Independent,' she changed her registration to 'no party,'" Tapper said.

When then county Supervisor of Elections Jackie Winchester told LaPore in the fall of 1995 that she was retiring, LaPore "registered as a Democrat and ran" for the office, according to Tapper.

So much for a being a loyal anything. But LaPore would have us feel sorry for her, because she turned to voting systems manager Tony Enos for help with the ballot design (Tapper offers no clues about where Enos was coming from, other than he was 36 years old and had worked in the supervisor's office since was was 18). And so it came to pass that LaPore and other Democrats with no knowledge of the state's election laws approved the infamous "butterfly" ballot.

The question remains: Was LaPore just stupid or corrupt? The evidence in Tapper's book suggests the former, because, he claims Judge Charles Burton, the chairman of the county canvassing board, and the other canvassing board members knew diddly about the law and let themselves be snookered into obtaining a written opinion on when manual recounts could be done from Harris lackey Clay Roberts, the head of the state Division of Elections, unaware that any written opinion from either Roberts or his boss, Harris, was binding. Tapper even goes so far as to write that Burton may not have even known the Division of Elections was part of Harris' office.
(snip/...)

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/051101Conover/051101conover.html

On edit: Unfortunately, there's so much disinformation around, you almost have to get a bio. (or many more) on the author in order to trust what you've read.

you got it right.

for years down in Palm Beach County. One of them use to work for the NSC, so he's a pretty sharp fellow. These folks have all kinds of horror stories about what an incompetent twit Teresa Le Pore has always been.

Le Pore's big claim to fame is working for Saudi arms dealers.

At least, compared to Castor and Deutch in the 2004 Dem Senate Primary.

But, yes, he did sort of leave Gore hanging. It was a sign of weakness more than anything, more pandering to the Cuban voters pissed off at Gore over the whole Elian Gonzalez thing.

he campaigned hard for her.

My biggest beef with Pinellas was not Gore, but his lack of support for Annie Betancourt, who lost a Congressional race against Mario Diaz Balart. He actively raised money for him (and of Cuban descent, too, so he didn't have that 'excuse.').

He didn't quite redeem himself with me during Castor's race, but he made progress.

Would have hoped he could have managed helping Annie Betancourt, too. I believe she's also Cuban-American and definitely a Democrat. It would be heavenly to see Lincoln Diaz-Balart finally get challenged HARD and lose.

A little Diaz-Balart goes a long way.

was another of Rove's dirty tricks.

That kid wasn't on hanging on an inner tube for 48 hours. Sorry, no way, no how.

impuntiy.

Enemies of the State had better not jaywalk.

PLUS in 2000, Emperor-in-Waiting Jeb USED TAXPAYER FUNDS to send out "absentee ballot request forms".

But of course, being Noble and Godly and Perfectly Moral, PARTY acvtions such as that one are not even investigated because our Noble and Godly Imperial Family would NEVER commit crimes.

I predcicted long ago, especially with Total Information Awareness, that once the Bushevbik had unregulated unchecked access to their opponents information, that you would begin to see a rash of Democratic crimes exposed with the added vitrtue that they would be real, even if they were for unenforced infractions or for "jaywalking" level stuff.

At the same time, the Imperials perform their crimes, such as using taxpayer monies to solicit out-of-state absentee ballots, with the absolute certainty of a KKK Man in 1938 Mississippi or a Nazi in 1938 Germany that they wouldn't even have to worry about an investigation.

Dear God, Imperial Amerika is as loathesome a place in many ways as ALL Totalitarians Nations.

And these are "The Good Old Days". Much worse ahead...

laws broken, anything goes unless you are a dem. then you are screwed. I've stopped reading the local paper it is so depressing.

One year ago the Orlando Police Department was contacted by Brian Mulvaney, the brother of my political opponent, and asked to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 election. Rather than have a law enforcement department that reports directly to me investigate charges against my campaign I asked Chief McCoy to turn this matter over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for further investigation.

I can report that after a year of investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and a grand jury investigation they have found what I knew to be the case one year ago -- there was no voter fraud in the 2003 and 2004 election. Let me repeat there was no voter fraud. No manipulation of votes. No finding of anything other than each ballot cast was properly done so by an elector of the City of Orlando and those votes were counted on election night last year.

The voter fraud portion of the investigation has been concluded and the results were negative and that should end the Mulvaney election contest.

That is the good news.

The bad news is that during the course of their investigation the FDLE switched their focus to a vague Florida statute that has never been applied in this state. They contend that the work of one political consultant and citizen of our city, Ezzie Thomas, constituted a violation of state statute. Mr. Thomas has worked in this community as a political activist and consultant for years and his clients have included the chief elections officer of this state, former Mayor Glenda Hood, our newest United States Senator Mel Martinez, City Council members, County Commission members, the Change 4 Kids campaign and the Mobility 20/20 campaign and members of the state Legislature. Yet this investigation was apparently focused on only my campaign and the campaign of one judge. And what does Ezzie Thomas do? He simply helps older African Americans participate in the voting process.

Yesterday I was notified that I was the subject of an indictment charging me with "providing pecuniary gain for absentee ballot possession or collection." In other words my campaign employed a campaign consultant who allegedly violated the law by encouraging older African American voters to participate in the elective process by absentee ballot and I am being held to account for that.

No charge of vote buying. No charge of vote brokering. No charge of vote manipulation.

I do not believe any employee of my campaigns intentionally violated any campaign laws while conducting the business of the campaign. At no time was I made aware of or condoned any activity that constituted a violation of any law and I believe the charges leveled against my campaigns and me are without merit and are politically motivated.

As a result I intend to fight these charges with every ounce of strength that I have and I am heartened by the fact that there has never been a prosecution of this statute since it was passed in 1998.

We intend to fight these charges with same level of intensity we have brought to bear on the challenges we have faced here in city government.

With regard to the management of our city, Governor Bush has suspended my official powers as mayor until this matter is adjudicated. When we are successful in that fight I will return to the office to serve as your Mayor for the remainder of my term.

My job today is to put the city in order and following this opportunity I will not comment on this matter, either here or outside my home.

So please respect my family's privacy.

I want to thank those of you who have called to let me know that I am in your prayers and those of you who have offered your unconditional support and help for me and my family. We have done great things in the two years we have been here and we will continue down that road in the future.

Thank you.

Oh isn't Ezzie nice guy. All he is doing is helping these poor old black Americans participate in the voting process.

Hey Dyer, you left out one word in that sentence. Ezzie loves to help old people votes. Especially older ILLITERATE African Americans. That way he can fill the ballot out for them and they have no way to know who they voted for.

Yep, all the ballots were valid but that doesn't mean that there wasn't any fraud.