{"id":1485,"date":"2026-07-08T05:50:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=1485"},"modified":"2026-07-08T05:50:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:50:53","slug":"florida-elected-officials-charged-in-voting-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=1485","title":{"rendered":"Florida Elected Officials Charged in Voting Fraud Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5736306\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5736306\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5736306\" src=\"https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/voting.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/voting.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/voting-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/voting-150x100.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/voting-768x512.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5736306\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Francis Chung\/POLITICO via AP Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Five people have been charged in connection with an alleged fake voter guide scheme in Florida, including three elected officials.<\/p>\n<p>St. Johns County Commissioners <strong>Sarah Arnold<\/strong> and <strong>Christian Whitehurst<\/strong>, and St. Augustine Beach city commissioner and former mayor <strong>Dylan Rumrell<\/strong> were charged with conspiracy and taking part in producing a false voter guide. Authorities said the guide was distributed in 2024 in St. Johns County as primary elections were kicking off.<\/p>\n<p>ABC News first <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/US\/florida-fake-voter-guide-spurs-accusations-dirty-tricks\/story?id=112894420\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> on accusations of \u201cdirty tricks\u201d in 2024 after the voter guides set off major alarms in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tag\/florida\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florida<\/a>. They were sent out just days before early voting kicked off on August 10.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw the card, and I\u2019m like, this is a real issue,\u201d St. John\u2019s County GOP Chair <strong>Denver Cook<\/strong> told ABC at the time. \u201cI was in shock. I\u2019m dealing with one of probably the most flagrant frauds on voters \u2014 the day before early voting. It became an instant train wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to charging documents, Campaign manager <strong>Brianna Jordan<\/strong> \u201cdeveloped a scheme\u201d to create confusion in the election by creating a false voter guide similar to the official one sent out by the local Republican Party. The fake guide, however, included false endorsements.<\/p>\n<p>A \u201csecret envelope stuffing\u201d operation was allegedly carried out at Jordan\u2019s office, with the campaign manager getting \u201cin excess of 10,000 fraudulent voter guides\u201d and approximately 20,000 postage stamps. They were then allegedly mailed from Jacksonville and Orlando to conceal their origin.<\/p>\n<p>One of Jordan\u2019s interns at the time, who now has an immunity agreement, told authorities that Jordan requested at one point that he purchase a \u201ckettle grill\u201d in cash after she saw a news report about the fake mailers on local TV. Some of the fake guides were then allegedly burned with the grill.<\/p>\n<p>The intern also claimed Whitehurst\u2019s mother was even involved with the scheme, slapping stamps on fake voter guides to be sent out.<\/p>\n<p>According to authorities, after the \u201ckettle grill\u201d burning, Jordan also reached out to shredding companies. She is also facing a charge for tampering with evidence. Authorities said they spoke to dozens of voters who remembered receiving the fake guides.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ann-Marie Evans<\/strong> was running against Whitehurst and had the endorsement of the St. Johns County GOP, which voters knew if they saw the real voter guide. Whitehurt, however, had the endorsement, according to the other guide. Other candidates and local officials have also been condemning the alleged actions of those being charged.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbsolutely, I believe that is what shifted the election from a victory for me to a victory for my opponent,\u201d Evans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstcoastnews.com\/article\/news\/local\/commissioners-react-charges-filed-fake-voter-guide-scheme-st-johns-county\/77-947ddb98-0ed1-4310-88f6-4282a695c893\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> local media.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Francis Chung\/POLITICO via AP Images Five people have been charged in connection with an alleged fake voter guide scheme in Florida, including three elected officials. St. Johns County Commissioners Sarah Arnold and Christian Whitehurst, and St. Augustine Beach city commissioner and former mayor Dylan Rumrell were charged with conspiracy and taking part in producing a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/voting.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}