Democrat Candidate Illegally Entered Polling Station, Complaint Says
(PatriotWise.com) – Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor entered a library in Tampa, Florida, on Monday, October 24. Doing so violated a state rule forbidding electioneering within voting sites, according to a ticket signed by a Hillsborough County elections worker.
Castor, an eight-term congressman, is competing against Republican James Judge for the nomination in a district that she won by 20 points in 2020. Voting in Florida began on October 24; today, about 3.6 million people have done so in person or by mail.
Castor visited the Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Library on October 24 to talk with NBC affiliate WFLA. She informed poll workers that “the film crew was standing in front of us as we exited [through] our entrance door” and that “she was here to perform some shooting,” according to the ticket, which the Daily Caller received exclusively. Castor, who, it should be noted, did not go to the library to cast her ballot, was “escorted” out of the polling station immediately by a poll worker.
Florida law prohibits candidates and campaign staff from “sending out voter solicitations within 150 feet of a secure ballot intake station or the entrance to any polling place, a polling room where the polling place is also a polling room, an early voting site, or an office of the supervisor, or inside any polling place or within any polling room.” If those elements aren’t met, voter intimidation, a third-degree criminal, is committed.
In several states, electioneering is prohibited close to polling places. Occasionally, the strategy—also known as “line-warming”—involves giving out food and presents that have the campaign’s brand. Democrats strongly criticized Georgia’s new electioneering rule, labeling it “Jim Crow 2.0,” even though blue states like New York and Delaware restrict line-warming.
Like every other Democrat in the House, Castor supported the HR1 “For The People” Act, which would have nationalized election laws. The bill would have required the legality of ballot harvesting, forbade states from implementing voter ID laws, and automatically enrolled all 16-year-olds to vote. However, it was defeated in the Senate. Castor claimed the bill was necessary to tackle “rampant voter suppression” and “end the monopoly of big money in politics.”
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