3 Florida residents are arrested for alleged voter fraud — and they’re all Republicans

Although voter fraud is nowhere near as widespread in the United States as former President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies claim, occasional incidents of voter fraud do occur here and there — and there is no evidence to suggest that the offenders are more likely to be Democrats, despite MAGA claims. Mike DeForest of WKMG-TV Channel 6 (a CBS affiliate in Orlando, Florida) is reporting that three residents of a Central Florida retirement community who are facing voter fraud charges are all registered Republicans.

Jay Ketcik, Joan Halstead and John Rider are residents of The Villages, a retirement community in Sumter County, Florida, and all of them have been arrested for casting more than one ballot in the 2020 election, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Prosecutors allege that the 71-year-old Halstead voted in person in Florida but also cast an absentee ballot in the same state, and the 63-year-old Ketcik cast an absentee ballot in Michigan but voted by mail in Florida. Meanwhile, Rider, according to DeForest, is accused of casting a ballot in Florida and a separate ballot out of the state.

“Court records also do not reveal which candidates they cast votes for in the 2020 general election,” DeForest reports. “All three are registered as Republicans in Florida, voter registration records show. Facebook pages that appear to belong to Ketcik and Halstead contain several posts expressing support for former President Donald Trump.”

Trump himself notoriously urged voters in North Carolina to vote twice during the 2020 campaign.

The Villages typically receives a lot of attention from politicians in Florida, as its residents are generally older — and older Americans are more likely to vote. Former Vice President Mike Pence, in fact, visited The Villages in October 2020 during last year’s presidential election.

DeForest notes, “Despite the recent arrests in Sumter County, very few Central Floridians have been prosecuted for casting multiple ballots, a News 6 review of court data reveals. Between 2000 and 2020 there were no prosecutions for that statute in Brevard, Lake, Marion and Sumter Counties, court data indicates. Prosecutors in Volusia and Orange Counties filed charges in only two cases during that same two-decade period.”