The man who wants control of the Collier County Supervisor of Elections office is telling voters that he believes there are thousands of non-citizens voting in Collier County, although he is providing no hard evidence.
Dave Shaffel is running to unseat Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier, who was appointed to the seat by Gov. Ron DeSantis himself.
Shaffel has claimed on social media that Collier County has a crisis with non-citizens voting, but provides no hard evidence and has filed no complaint with the state over such a serious allegation.
“We are going to find the hard evidence that we suspect from what we have found with that information,” Shaffel said.
He said he suspects non-citizens who are getting a driver’s license or social security number could vote.
When asked if his claims were simply based on what he suspects, he exclaimed, "Absolutely."
“I cannot say for sure because our supervisor of elections is not doing her statutory responsibility and receiving the list of non-citizens who need to be removed from the voter rolls,” Shaffel said.
Blazier confirmed the county removed seven non-citizens from voter rolls in the last year.
“We do not have a crisis or inundation of non-citizens on the voter rolls in Collier County or in the state of Florida,” Blazier said.
A claim backed up by Secretary of State Cord Byrd.
“Anyone who would say we’re ignoring this issue or turning a blind eye... that is just incorrect,” Byrd said.
The state must rely on federal data to determine who can legally vote. County supervisors, though, do not have access to that data, but Cord wants them to. It would save the state time
He said out of the state’s 13.5 million voters, there have been just two convictions of illegal voting statewide.
“Florida is leading the country in preventing and removing non-citizens, preventing non-citizens from registering to vote and removing non-citizens from the voter rolls,” Byrd said.
Average voters like Paul Clemmensen who cast a ballot on Tuesday said he trusted the governor and the people assigned to investigate the tasks.
Jon Evans, who also voted Tuesday, said from what he has seen he doesn’t believe in the claims of mass voter fraud.
“I think we have a pretty good governor on hand and Collier County is pretty tight. They don’t allow that kind of thing to happen, from what I see. I think it’s false,” Evans said.
Shaffel was asked if he plans to ask the state to investigate his claims of people voting illegally.
“We don’t feel it’s time right now before an election,” Shaffel said.