Two Jacksonville men arrested in voter registration investigation

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The state attorney’s office has charged two Jacksonville men for using dozens of people’s personal information on voter registration applications.

According to the state attorney’s office, investigators met with the Duval County Supervisor of Elections office on Aug. 19 to review inconsistencies on a large number of recently turned-in voter registration applications. The inconsistencies included signatures that did not match and personal identification information that was not correct.

A review of the flagged applications revealed initials coinciding with Devin King and Jordan Daniels on the backs of many of the forms.

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Flagged applications were turned over to investigators, who contacted many of the people listed on the forms. More than 60 applications were submitted for people who are deceased, or for voters who did not authorize their information to be used, according to the SAO.

“As we go down the list, the first thing we will be checking is the driver’s license number and the driver’s license number and the names match but when we looked at the signature, it didn’t match the signature on our file,” Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan said to Action News Jax. “Then we noticed there was a pattern and we found multiple of those.”

Investigators said King and Daniels’ crimes appear to have been done for monetary gain rather than political purposes.

“If they’re paid by the application, they want to get as many as they can if it’s more dollars apiece,” Hogan told Action News Jax.

Politicians have repeatedly and falsely claimed that the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections were marred by large numbers of people voting illegally. However, extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators. The same is true for mail ballots, which are secure and essential to holding a safe election amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to reporting by the Brennan Center For Justice.

“The security of voter registration and elections is a serious matter and of paramount importance today,” said Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan. “It is vital that the voters of Duval County, the State of Florida, and the nation as a whole trust the registration and election process, from start to finish. The discovery of these attempts at fraud shows that the system here in Duval County and all of Florida is secure and trustworthy. Voters can have confidence that their information is secure and will be counted accurately.”

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The Supervisor of Elections Office is advising registered voters to check the status of their voter registration to ensure all information is up to date and accurate. Registered voters who find irregularities with their voter registration information should contact the Supervisor of Elections Office at (904) 255-8683.

If convicted, King and Daniels would each face a minimum sentence of ten years in prison.

Samantha Mathers

Samantha Mathers, Action News Jax

Samantha Mathers is a digital reporter and content creator for Action News Jax.

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