Florida newspaper warns of ‘election conspiracy theorists’ in Trump’s backyard

A Florida newspaper warns that an “election conspiracy theorist” is seeking control of the election in an area that includes former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club residence.

Republican Jeff Buongiorno hopes to replace Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link in November. Link was appointed to the office as a Republican by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in January 2019, but switched to Democrat after taking office.

Buongiorno recently filed suit alleging “a conspiracy to influence the upcoming election by registering non-citizens and people with synthetic identities to vote.” He names Link, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and other federal and state officials as defendants.

In an opinion article published on Thursday, the editors of the South Florida Sun Sentinel warned that Buongiorno “adheres to the fantasy that millions of immigrants are streaming into the country illegally to vote [Vice President] Kamala Harris in the Oval Office.

“There was a time when candidates who spread conspiracy theories were dismissed as unelectable. That is over now. After all, in November, millions of Floridians will be voting for the biggest electoral conspiracy theorist of all.

“In 2020, there was only one election conspiracy. Now there are dozens of them, and all across the state, election conspiracy theorists like Buongiorno are on the ballot or jostling to influence whose vote counts.”

Newsweek reached out to the Buongiorno campaign via email on Thursday for comment.

Buongiorno's lawsuit speculates that “millions of illegal border crossers” are or will be registered to vote in November's election. Trump and some of his supporters have made similar claims about past federal elections, with investigations finding that a tiny fraction of the votes cast – far fewer than needed to affect the outcome – actually came from noncitizens.

Among the complaints in the lawsuit is that “the Palm Beach County Department of Transportation registers Spanish-speaking voters without requiring proof of citizenship.” Under federal law, no proof is required to register to vote. Instead, voters must swear that they are citizens or face perjury.

States also have procedures in place to weed out noncitizens who try to register. A review of Georgia's voter rolls in 2022 found that 1,634 noncitizens tried to register, but all were unsuccessful because they were caught by election officials, according to the Associated Press.

The Sun Guardian The editorial argued that Florida residents could not “dismiss” Buongiorno's lawsuit because the case had been assigned to Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. Cannon is best known for dismissing the former president's case involving federal documents last month after issuing a series of rulings that were criticized as allegedly biased in his favor.

“Buongiorno is just one of several conspiracy-theorist poll workers seeking to oversee Florida's elections,” the panel wrote. “Voter fraud is actually being committed in Florida, and voters need to be aware of it: It is the clickbait fiction that the Democratic machine is hopelessly rigged and can only be fixed by restricting access to the ballot box.”