A judge will rule Wednesday whether Miami-Dade County’s ordinance governing the collection of absentee ballots is constitutional.
The ruling will come in the criminal case against Sergio Robaina, who prosecutors say illegally collected ballots, and filled out two against the wishes of two voters, one of them a woman with dementia. Robaina insists he was just helping elderly citizens who could not deliver their absentee ballots themselves.
Robaina is charged with two counts of violating the ordinance, and two felony counts of voter fraud.
Two years ago, in an effort to crack down on perceived election fraud, the Miami-Dade County Commission passed the ordinance that outlawed the collection possession of more than two absentees ballots, making it a misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail or a fine of up to $1,000.
This past election season, as allegations of absentee ballot fraud rose in Miami-Dade, police used the ordinance as a probable cause-stepping stone to investigate felony charges of voter fraud.
Robaina’s lawyers have asked Miami-Dade Judge Milton Hirsch to throw out the ordinance, saying it unfairly targeted certain voters.
“It cuts off a certain class of voters, for the most part elderly Hispanic who probably live in the Sweetwater area who are accustomed to having confidence in certain people and they talk to them about how to vote,” lawyer Joseph Klock told the judge.
Also, the lawyers alleged, the ordinance is fundamentally unfair because it applies only in Miami-Dade — while some ballots include races for districts that stretch into neighboring counties.
Oren Rosenthal, an assistant county attorney, argued that the commission had every right to enact the ordinance under state law. He also said the ordinance “cuts off a class of fraud that has been proven unique in Miami-Dade County over the years.”
Judge to rule on Miami-Dade absentee ballot ordinance
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Judge to rule on Miami-Dade absentee ballot ordinance
