Daytona Beach City Commissioner Derrick Henry and his campaign manager were arrested Wednesday, charged with committing absentee ballot fraud during Henrys 2010 re-election campaign.
The arrest of Henry and Genesis Robinson comes a little more than two months after Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall requested an investigation into irregularities in absentee ballot requests coming into her office.
McFall brought her concerns to the Volusia County Sheriffs Office in August, prompting the Sheriffs Office and the State Attorneys Office to immediately launch a joint investigation that ultimately led to the filing of a dozen felony charges against both defendants.
The investigation revealed that Henry and Robinson devised a strategy to boost Henrys re-election bid by obtaining absentee ballots for numerous people, most of whom never requested the ballots. By law, residents are only allowed to request absentee ballots for themselves, immediate family members or for someone for whom they’re acting as legal guardian.
McFall filed the complaint on August 11 after her office received a large number of requests for absentee ballots that were all initiated from the same e-mail address. Based on the e-mail address, it appeared that the requests came from someone with an interest in the Daytona Beach City Commission Zone 5 race. Henry, the Zone 5 incumbent who was locked in a three-way primary, was re-elected on August 24.
The subsequent investigation revealed that between the two of them, Henry and Robinson had requested a total of 92 absentee ballots through the elections offices web site. Four of the absentee ballots were found at Henrys house when investigators searched it on Sept. 23. Investigators also recovered absentee ballot applications and receipts for some of the absentee ballots along with handbooks outlining Florida election laws. The four absentee ballots were found under a computer keyboard.
Investigators from both the Sheriffs Office and the State Attorneys Office interviewed many of the 92 people for whom absentee ballots were requested. And what they heard was a variety of stories. For instance, one resident said she received an absentee ballot in the mail even though she hadn’t requested one. A few days later, she said one of Henrys campaign workers showed up at her house and asked if she had received her ballot and had filled it out. The resident said she got the ballot while the campaign worker waited. Then she filled it out, sealed and signed the ballot and turned it over to the campaign worker.
In another case, a resident said that Henry offered to get him an absentee ballot and the resident agreed. But when the ballot arrived at the mans house, it came with a second ballot for a former resident who had moved away in 2007.
In yet another instance, two requests that were made in the name of a resident were subsequently rejected by the elections office because the resident’s voter status had been classified as inactive. So investigators sought out the man to see if he knew why the absentee ballot requests had been made on his behalf. But after investigating, officials discovered that the man didn’t request the ballots and hasn’t lived or voted in Florida in more than two decades.
Henry also had requested an absentee ballot for his niece, listing her address as a home registered to Henry that was located within Zone 5. But investigators discovered that even though the niece used the absentee ballot to vote in the Zone 5 race, she actually lives at a different location in the city, outside of Zone 5. Investigators also spoke to several others who confirmed that they hadn’t asked for an absentee ballot and had no idea that the Henry campaign had requested a ballot for them.
During an interview with investigators, Robinson acknowledged coming up with the strategy of applying on-line for absentee ballots, saying that Henry had approved the idea back in April when Robinson presented it to him. Robinson said it was done in an effort to increase voter turnout and improve Henrys chances of re-election. Henry was re-elected in the municipal election with 65 percent of the vote, beating his nearest competitor by nearly 600 votes.
Henry, 41, is charged with two counts of absentee ballots and voting violations, nine counts of being a principal to absentee ballots and voting violations and one count of conspiracy to commit absentee ballots and voting violations. Robinson, 21, is facing 11 counts of being a principal to absentee ballots and voting violations and one count of conspiracy to commit absentee ballots and voting violations. All of the charges are 3rd degree felonies.
Late Wednesday morning, both men surrendered to investigators with the Sheriffs Office and the State Attorneys Office and transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach on $6,000 bond each.
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