Seniors say party affiliation was switched to Republican

Elected leaders call for criminal investigation

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Numerous elderly residents in South Florida said their political party affiliation was changed from Democrat to Republican without their knowledge.

Now, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is calling for an investigation into the potential "voter fraud," the Miami Herald reported.

A spokesperson for the county has reached out to State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle to look into the complaints from residents of the Haley Sofge Towers public housing complex in Little Havana, according to reports. Other top Democrats, including gubernatorial candidates state Sen. Annette Taddeo and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, have called for a probe into the matter, according to reports.

(WPLG)

"Under the alleged guise of voter renewal efforts, canvassers entered the building and engaged with elderly residents, who claim they did not approve sudden changes to their party affiliation," Levine Cava wrote in her email to the state attorney.

In December, an 84-year-old lifelong Democrat and Little Havana resident noticed that her party affiliation on her voter registration had been changed, according to Local 10 news.

The Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office told the media outlet that the woman's party affiliation had been changed in November by a third party.

She then recalled that representative from a third-party voter registration organization had knocked on her door and gave her paperwork to sign. She signed the paperwork without consenting to changing her voter registration affiliation to Republican, reports said.

Local 10 news later learned that the third-party that went to her door was the Republican Party of Florida. Many other residenets came forward to report that the same thing happened to them when WPLG's Glenna Milberg visited the housing project to speak to residents.

Taddeo has received numerous calls and complaints from older voters or those who know older voters who had a similar issue with their voter registration being changed without their knowledge, calling the reports "troubling" in a letter to the county's supervisor of elections, Christina White.

"As an elected leader who believes that trust in our processed is paramount, I am deeply concerned by these reports," she wrote in the letter, which she shared on Twitter. "It no longer appears that this was an isolated incident but a targeted effort to swindle one of our most vulnerable populations: our elders."

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