More voter fraud in The Villages. What else is new? A lot. | Commentary
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If you ever find yourself bored and looking for interesting reading material, may I humbly suggest checking out Villages-News.com, a news site for America’s largest retirement community. Because, man, it’s a wild ride.
The daily headlines out of The Villages are like a Carl Hiaasen novel come to life. Like: “Golf cart erupts in flames at Lake Sumter Landing,” which casually noted that this was “the third major golf cart fire this year in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.”
Even the stories that look deceivingly tame have amazing twists. Like: “Fired leasing agent at Lofts at Brownwood arrested on vandalism charges.” Sure, it’s just your standard man-attacks-cars story … until you get to the third paragraph, which notes that the suspect was also “arrested earlier this year after defecating on a romantic rival’s truck.” Talk about a dump truck.
And sometimes, tucked in among the stories about exploding golf carts and criminal bowel movements, you’ll also find pieces of genuine news.
Last week, for instance, the site revealed that a leader of the Villagers for Trump group was “shocked” to learn that a jury had convicted him of voter fraud.
Apparently Sumter County elections officials got suspicious when a vote-by-mail ballot was submitted on behalf of Robert Rivernider’s father with a curious postmark — four days after his father reportedly died. Suspicions turned into felony charges after a handwriting expert examined the signature of the deceased dad.
Some of the story details were just bananas. Like this one: “When the prosecutor moved to revoke Rivernider’s bond, the prosecutor reminded the judge that Rivernider is already on federal probation for a 2013 conspiracy and wire fraud conviction.”
Another line noted that Rivernider’s attorney, former State Rep. Anthony Sabatini, “rested the defendant’s case without putting any evidence before the jury” … which then took less than an hour to convict his client. Well done, counselor.
Keep in mind: Rivernider wasn’t the first Villager arrested on voter-fraud charges. Nor was he the second, third or even fourth. Four other Villages residents have already admitted guilt on charges of voting twice in 2020.
Apparently in The Villages, election fraud is almost as popular as line dancing.
Now, you might not be aware of that, since Gov. Ron DeSantis — who vowed to crack down on election fraud — has been noticeably quiet about all the arrests in this community where he likes to hold fundraisers and rallies.
In Florida, not all voter fraud is considered equal | Commentary
Apparently the governor doesn’t consider double-voting or dead-people voting bothersome. Only when former felons cast ballots improperly.
Except there was also this line from the Orlando Sentinel’s story last fall about Rivernider’s arrest: “Rivernider also faced scrutiny for an Oct. 31 absentee ballot officials say he cast in the 2022 election, despite being a felon who owes restitution. But in a Dec. 9 memo, the state attorney’s office concluded ‘the state cannot prove … beyond a reasonable doubt’ that Rivernider knowingly cast the absentee ballot illegally.’ ”
That is precisely what DeSantis and other Republicans have said should be mercilessly probed by their new election-crimes unit … when dark-skinned people in Democratic areas do it, anyway. When it’s a White Republican in The Villages, they apparently issue the prosecutorial equivalent of a shrug emoji. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
GOP activist in The Villages accused of forging signature on dead dad’s ballot
I was starting to get angry. But then I found myself distracted by more content on Villages-News.com. Headlines like: “Father Ed intends to represent himself in court on DUI charge.” And: “Accused swindler in The Villages asks judge to allow contact with wife and son.” (This was another accused swindler, mind you.)
Then there were the ads. OMG, the ads.
Particularly eye-catching was a promotion for a Villagers for Trump event featuring an “EXCLUSIVE keynote speaker” who would explain how she’d filed “an over 1,000 page Application to Associate Justice Thomas that could reverse the entire 2020 and 2022 elections!”
Because why overturn just one election when you can try for two? It’s like a BOGO.
Now, it seems like a lot of the Florida Republicans currently in office might object to overturning the elections that put them there. It also seems like, if the last two rounds of elections were about to be invalidated, we’d hear about it somewhere other than the Wildwood Community Center.
But you could find out for yourself for the bargain ticket price of $20, which also entitled a friend to come for free. Another BOGO.
By this point, you might be asking yourself: So is everybody in The Villages nuts? Or facing fraud charges?
No. In fact, I think Villagers often get a bad rap — including the urban legends about sexually transmitted diseases being more popular than pickleball out there. As several news organizations have written, those stories were exaggerated.
There are a lot of smart, fun and thoughtful Villages residents. I hear from them every week. They are folks who’ve decided they still have a lot of life to live and want to make the most of it, whether by golfing, going up in hot-air balloons or joining the Villages’ popular Parrothead Club.
And if you scan Villages-News.com closely enough, you’ll also find the feel-good stories. Like: “Happy Villager pays for drinks after getting his first hole-in-one.” And “Residents are flocking to a home in The Villages for a perfect holiday photo opportunity.”
So if you can just dodge all the swindlers and try not to focus on this community of voting fraudsters complaining about election fraud, you might just have a blast.
