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April 23, 2024 - Epoch Times
12:47
Federal Arrest Over 2022 Mail-In Ballot Fraud Scheme
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Over in the state of New Jersey, a political operative has been arrested on felony mail-in ballot fraud charges stemming from the operations that he's been running over in Atlantic City for years.
And the details of this particular case and these operations are fascinating.
And so let's go through them together right after you take a super quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons so that this information can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm.
Now, to start with, the political operative in question here is Mr. Craig Calloway, the former president of the Atlantic City City Council.
And locally, Mr. Calloway is seen as something of an expert in mail-in ballots.
In fact, at a fundraiser that a non-profit in New Jersey was hosting and where Mr. Calloway spoke, he was described in the invitation letter for the event as a vote-turnout expert.
And also, in the body of the promotional material for the fundraising event, Enticing People to Come, they gave a brief outline of Mr. Calloway's personal history as well as his general electoral history.
And here's what they wrote, quote: "Craig Calloway was born in 1959 in Atlantic City as one of nine children.
During the early 1980s, Calloway worked as a PBX operator and hotel clerk for the Resorts International and Harris Casinos.
Then, he worked in the mercantile office of Atlantic City Government for the next 23 years.
Callaway quickly earned a reputation for being fair and helpful to the merchants, bus, taxi, and parking lot owners and operators he worked with.
Many of them were recent immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other Asian countries.
Over the years, many of them developed a rapport with Craig Calloway and began helping each other politically.
When he first got involved in politics, Craig Calloway applied his skills and methods to elect only candidates affiliated with the Democratic Party.
However, during the past 20 years, Calloway has chosen to support candidates who he believes best represent his views and interests, regardless of party.
And indeed, looking at his general track record, it appears that Mr. Callaway has something of a Midas touch when it comes to local elections.
The synopsis continued: "Craig Calloway is recognized and respected as one of the best Get Out the Vote organizers in America.
In 2001, Calloway then ran the Get Out the Vote drive in both the primary and general elections to elect Democrat Lorenzo Langford as Atlantic City mayor.
In that same year, Callaway ran for office himself and was elected ward councilman from the third ward of Atlantic City.
In 2004, Craig Callaway received national recognition when he applied his vote turnout techniques for John Kerry during the Bush-Kerry presidential election.
And then, just as that earlier part of the synopsis mentioned, Mr. Callaway didn't appear to discriminate between Republicans and Democrats when offering his services.
Quote, "In 2013, Craig Calloway helped unseat Democrat Lorenzo Langford and elect Republican Don Guardian as mayor in Atlantic City, a town with an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters.
In 2020, Calloway helped Amy Kennedy when she was a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the House of Representatives in South Jersey.
Amy Kennedy defeated Callahan Harrison in the Democratic primary election in June.
However, when Kennedy did not hire Calloway for the November election, Calloway worked for Jeff Van Drew, who had just switched to the Republican Party that January.
Van Drew won re-election as a Republican in November of 2020.
And by the way, it's worth mentioning that this work is quite lucrative for Mr. Callaway, evidenced by the fact that Congressman Van Drew paid Mr. Callaway a cool $135,000 for just a few months of work leading up to the November election.
The summary continues: "Last November, Callaway helped Republican Tokyo Joe Donahue upset incumbent Democrat Eric Scheffler to win election as Atlantic County Sheriff.
Callaway also helped Republican Jesse Kurtz win a landslide reelection to city council in the mostly Democrat sixth ward of Atlantic City." And so that is, if nothing else, an incredibly impressive resume.
It appears that Mr. Calloway is able to elect whoever he works for, regardless of the challenges present in the electoral environment.
In fact, here was how Mr. Calloway was described in a recent article that was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Calloway's vote-by-mail efforts are well-known in Atlantic City, where he basically sets up shop in the clerk's office in Mays Landing, ferrying messengers in a white van to obtain mail-in ballots for voters.
He has previously defended his actions as working within the state mail-in ballot laws.
His influence was profound.
And in fact, along that line of his influence, the chairman of the Atlantic County Republicans summed it up quite succinctly, quote, However, in terms of how Mr. Callaway was able to achieve these amazing results, well, we now have some clues.
Because in February of this year, Mr. Callaway was arrested and charged with federal voter fraud, related to his work on mail-in ballots.
And alongside the actual indictment, there was a short statement released by the U.S.
Attorney's Office in New Jersey which said the following, quote, Mr. Craig Calloway was arrested today for his role in procuring, casting, and tabulating fraudulent mail-in ballots submitted in the November 8, 2022 general election.
Now, in terms of the specifics of what the Feds were actually able to uncover, well, there was a 10-page indictment document that was released to the public outlining both the investigation as well as the findings.
You can see the charging document up on your screen right now.
And this indictment alleges that while working on Congressman Van Drew's re-election campaign in the year 2022, well, here's what happened.
Quote, approximately one month before the November 8th, 2022 general election, Calloway and others working at Calloway's direction approached numerous individuals in Atlantic City promising to pay them 30 to 50 dollars to act as purported authorized messengers for voters who supposedly wish to vote by mail.
OK, so just to pause here and summarize, approaching the date of the actual midterm election, Mr. Calloway and his associates would search for people in Atlantic City and allegedly offer them somewhere between 30 to 50 dollars for a single day's work.
He wouldn't really explain to them what the day's work would entail, only that they would be acting as messengers for election-related matters.
And so then, once Mr. Calloway found enough of these messengers, they would go and post up at the local county clerk's office.
Quote, Mr. Calloway and his subordinates further offered to transport these individuals to and from the county clerk's office to perform this voting-related work.
Upon arriving at the parking lot of the county clerk's office, an individual who accepted Calloway's offer for work would meet with Calloway, Calloway's subordinates, or on occasion both, and provide Calloway or Calloway's subordinates with their identification.
Callaway or Callaway's subordinates used the identification to complete the authorized messenger portion of the vote-by-mail application and then provided the individual with multiple applications that Callaway or his subordinates had only moments earlier filled out.
The majority of these purported messengers were unfamiliar with the role of an authorized messenger and did not know the voters listed on the vote-by-mail applications for whom they were supposedly serving as authorized messengers.
And so, allegedly, these supposed messengers would be given these applications that were filled out right there on the spot in the parking lot by either Mr. Callaway himself or by one of his subordinates.
Then, these so-called messengers would then head on over to the quote, Atlantic County Clerk's Office carrying anywhere from one to four completed vote-by-mail applications.
As instructed by Mr. Calloway or his subordinates, these individuals provided county clerk's office personnel proof of identification and signed the vote-by-mail applications in the authorized messenger portion before handing these signed applications to the office personnel.
The purported messengers waited while office personnel processed the applications and, if the applications were approved, provided to the purported messengers mail-in ballots for the voters listed on the applications.
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And so, in short, these messengers were allegedly being paid by Mr. Calloway to essentially just be runners.
They would be given these absentee ballot applications right there in the parking lot.
They would then take those applications inside to the county clerk's office.
They would submit the applications.
They would wait for them to be processed.
And then, once they were processed, these messengers would be handed real mail-in ballots.
Now, in New Jersey, state law requires that a messenger must deliver the mail-in ballot that they receive from the clerk directly to the voter who actually requested that ballot.
And then the messenger must certify that they delivered the ballot to the actual human voter.
But, according to the indictment, that's not what happened here.
Instead, after these messengers received the mail-in ballots from the county clerk's office, they left that office and handed the ballots directly to either Mr. Callaway or to one of his subordinates right there in the parking lot, after which The indictment claims that the following happened.
Quote, Many of the mail-in ballots collected by Calloway or his subordinates were ultimately cast in the names of people who have confirmed that they did not vote in the 2022 general election, either in person or by submitting a mail-in ballot, and that they did not authorize Calloway or his subordinates or anyone else to cast ballots for them.
Many of these mail-in ballots were counted towards in the election.
Meaning that the allegation here was that Mr. Calloway and his associates were voting on behalf of people who did not authorize them to do so and/or weren't even aware that this was happening.
And the indictment has quite a few examples of voters who the feds interviewed and who told the investigators that they definitely did not vote in the 2022 election, even though technically they did.
There's also surveillance footage from the county clerk's office, which again, allegedly shows this all taking place.
Now, as always, everyone here in America is innocent until proven guilty, and these are, after all, just the charges that Mr. Callaway was arrested on.
He has yet to be found guilty of anything, and therefore, he should be presumed innocent until he has his day in court.
Now, the specific charges against him, which is the procuring, casting, and tabulating of fraudulent ballots, carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, as well as a $250,000 fine.
And it is also worth noting that the charges here stem only from the November 2022 midterm election, not from any of the prior elections before that.
And as of right now, Mr. Callaway has not issued any statements on this particular matter.
At the moment, Mr. Callaway is free after he posted a $50,000 unsecured bond.
Now, after his arrest, Mr. Michael Suleiman, who is the current chairman of the Atlantic County Democrat Party, he released a statement saying this in part, quote, It's no secret that candidates from both parties have hired Calloway in the past to help them win elections.
Those who hired him cannot plead ignorance now.
Everyone in Atlantic County knows exactly what Calloway's operation is and the blatant illegality of it all.
He further added that he will be using this arrest as an impetus to lobby both the state legislature as well as the governor's office to pass new laws explicitly banning the practice of paying people to act as ballot messengers, which, for your reference, is currently not illegal in the state of New Jersey.
Now whether that lobbying effort will go anywhere is anyone's guess.
In the meantime, Mr. Callaway will be having his trial later this year, and I'll bring you any updates as they're made available.
Otherwise, in the meantime, if you would like to read the full indictment for yourself, which I would recommend it.
It's actually pretty interesting and includes a lot of details in terms of the investigation.
I'll throw a link to the PDF version of it.
You'll be able to find it down in the description box below.
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And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times.
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