A review of some absentee ballots at the center of an inquiry into possible election fraud shows that at least one seems to have a forged signature.
Of the 31 absentee ballots that have become the focus of an investigation into possible election fraud in Hialeah, at least one appears to have a forged signature.
The ballot belonged to Zulema Gómez, 81, who entered a nursing home five months ago suffering from Alzheimer’s and a brain tumor. On the ballot’s envelope someone wrote: “The lady is my sister. I sign like this because she has arthritis + she has difficult signing. Thank you.”
However, her sister, Olga Gómez, said Wednesday that she never wrote that message. Two weeks ago, she said, Daisy Cabrera took the blank absentee ballot and promised to go to the nursing home in Miami Springs and deliver it to Zulema. The sisters have known Cabrera for four years, when she visited them during the 2008 presidential election to help them with their absentee ballots.
“She was going to the [nursing] home,” said Gómez, 68. “I don’t know if she actually went, but it’s a lie that I signed that.”
Cabrera could face serious charges if it is established that she forged the signature on the ballot.
Last week, Cabrera, a well-known “ballot woman,” or boletera, in Hialeah, was arrested while carrying a dozen ballots while she rode in a Toyota Camry driven by Matilde Martínez. A day before, she had taken 19 ballots to a post office in Hialeah, not knowing she was being watched by detectives from the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Public Corruption Unit.
She has not been charged with a crime, although a county ordinance prohibits carrying more than two other people’s absentee ballots. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has said it is expanding the investigation to determine whether a felony has been committed.
On Wednesday, El Nuevo Herald reporters reviewed the envelopes of the 31 absentee ballots that authorities delivered to the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.
The alleged victims are Hispanics whose ages range from 43 to 100 and who live in apartments and houses throughout Hialeah. All but five of those voters are at least 70 years old. A few of them are illiterate. Some said Cabrera filled out their ballots and had pressured them to vote for the candidates of her choice. None of them said they received money in exchange for their ballots.
And some do not remember whom they voted for or whether they had signed their ballots.
“Maybe I did — I don’t really remember,” said Paula Montero, 98, who is illiterate, scratching her head as if in a daze. “But she filled it out. She wrote things there. I don’t know what she wrote on the ballot.”
It has not been determined whether someone paid Cabrera, 56, to help voters with their ballots.
Those who defend her say she is a humble woman who loves politics but might not have known about the ordinance that forbids collecting of others’ ballots.
She is known as a volunteer who was close to Hialeah City Council member Vivian Casals-Muñoz. She has also worked for the campaigns of state Rep. Eddy González, state Sen. René García, and former state Sen. Rudy García, who ran unsuccessfully for Hialeah mayor last year.
González and René García have acknowledged that Cabrera made calls to voters during their campaigns. Former members of Rudy García’s campaign said Cabrera did similar work for him.
Casals-Muñoz has not responded several telephone messages and visits by El Nuevo Herald reporters to her house since July 25.
Cabrera’s case has stirred local outrage and has raised new questions about how to address electoral fraud. It has also upset some of the voters whose ballots ended up in Cabrera’s possession last week.
“We don’t know anything,” said a woman who came to the door of a West Hialeah apartment where Cabrera apparently collected three ballots last week.
However, on Saturday, Raúl Coto, 50, told El Nuevo Herald reporters who visited the same apartment that he had handed his ballot, as well as that of his mother’s and his wife’s, to Cabrera. He said that Cabrera offered to take the ballots to the post office.
“She did me the favor because I don’t have the time,” said Coto, who filled out his own ballot.
Several voters who were interviewed by El Nuevo Herald said they had voted to reelect county mayor Carlos Giménez, who is running against Joe Martínez, chairman of the Commission. At least one woman said that she had voted for Giménez after Cabrera’s insistence.
“I didn’t want to vote for the person I voted for, Carlos Giménez,” said Miriam de la Cruz, 71.
She added: “I would like to be able to recover my ballot to vote for Joe Martínez, who I like better for mayor.”
Cabrera had promoted Giménez’s candidacy for weeks and she was arrested a block from his campaign office in Hialeah. Giménez has repeatedly denied that Cabrera worked for his campaign.
Alejandro Abreu, 86, said that Cabrera arrived at his house after his wife Eloísa, 80, called the campaign office of a candidate for county mayor. He didn’t remember the candidate’s name and said that Eloísa could not be interviewed because she was ill.
He added that Cabrera offered to help them with their absentee ballots.
“She said: ‘Look, we come on behalf of the candidate you called, to help with you fill the ballot,’ ” Abreu said.
He said that Cabrera never recommended voting for a particular candidate. The couple ended up voting for Giménez and handed their ballots to Cabrera.
Other voters, like Josefina Schwiep, 81, said that they relied on Cabrera’s help and advice.
Schwiep said that during the last presidential elections, Cabrera knocked on Schwiep’s door, offering to take her to the voting poll or help her with her absentee ballot.
“She took me the first time to vote there on 49th Street,” said Schwiep, who spoke to Miami Dade detectives on Tuesday. “Then later, when they sent me the absentee ballot so that I wouldn’t have to go all the way there, I called her and told her: ‘Hey, I have received the absentee ballot. Come.’ ”
Schwiep said that since she does not know the politicians, she asked Cabrera to help her decide whom to vote for.
“I told her, ‘Well, how do I do this? Because the truth is that I don’t know who to vote for,’ But I saw the names and told her, ‘Which one is this?’ She guided me, but I was the one marking the ballot. When we finished, I signed.”
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