Last Updated on September 29, 2020
Project Veritas exposed a ballot harvesting scheme largely effecting immigrant and elderly communities of Minneapolis.
Investigations conducted by Project Veritas [PV] lead to the discovery of a ‘ballot harvesting triangle’ which took place between Riverside Plaza apartments, Horn Tower senior citizen, and Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office which also serves as a ballot collection site and voting location.
Somalian-Americans and elderly communities are targeted by ‘vote-buying operatives’ with ties to Ilhan Omar.
“Ballot harvesting is real and it has become a big business.” According to CEO and Founder of PV, James O’Keefe.
“Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities—and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk.”
Omar Jamal who works for the Ramsey County Sheriff, acts as chairman of the Somali Watchdog Group, and is know for being an active participant in the Somali community over the last 20 years came forward to PV to uncover voter fraud having reported recited the PV motto to them in his interview.
“I have to be brave. Do something.”
According to Jamal, his community is weakened by vote-buying operatives targeting Somalian-Americans who are use to a more tyrannical style government, and the elderly who are easily susceptible to being pressured or scammed.
“It’s an open secret,” Jamal said.
“She (Omar) will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that.”
“If American people don’t pay attention to what’s happening, the country will collapse,” Says Jamal “The regulations, if you ignore that and you let corruption and fraud become a daily business and then tough luck, the country will not exist as they [Americans] know it. I’m afraid it’s already too big to stop, you know, maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s already too big to stop. There’s a lot of people invested in this, you know, and they don’t care how they did it: ‘We win,’ and that’s it.”
Jamal interviewed a Somali-American as part of his work with PV. The Somali-American explained how he was paid for voting in the primary and special election on August 11th.
“They come to us. They came to our homes. They said: ‘This year, you will vote for Ilhan,’” said the Somali-American. “They said: ‘We will make the absentee ballots. We will fill out the forms for you and when you get them back, we will again fill it out and send it.”
The Somali-American who works as ballot harvester claimed vote-buying operatives linked to Omar showed up to his home to watch as he filled out the voter paperwork.
“You stay home and you will not go to the place,” according to Jamal’s interview.
“When we sign the voting document and they fill it out is when they give us the money,” he said. “The minute we signed the thing [ballot] for the election. That’s when we get paid.”
Jamal highlights how miseducation is used as a weapon of vote-buying operatives to trick new immigrants into handing over their ballots.
“We have to understand that the immigrants mostly, here now, are first generation immigrants,” he said.
“Through no fault of their own the new immigrants are learning about democracy from the ballot harvesters,” he said. “When they get here, because of that ignorance, not knowing how this, all things work. Sometimes they even think it’s legal.” – he said.
Vote-buying operatives use similar tactics to harvest ballots from elderly communities by filling out the paperwork, and taking pictures of peoples social security cards and drivers licenses.
A former ‘political worker’ told a PV journalist that Ali Isse Gainey, and Omar’s campaign manager, is directly involved in ballot harvesting schemes, and the practice is pervasive even when it comes to the handling of voters at polling stations.
According to the insider, “they [ballot harvesters] bring them. They line them. They put the open ballots in there and then they take them in and say, ‘Here,’ and the people mark [the ballots].”
People are being permitted to vote without proper ID.
“People that are showing their ID: ‘I moved 30 days ago, my ID’s not come back.’ ‘OK, just give us the last four of your social and tell us the address,’ and then somebody else will say ‘Yeah.’ They will send people who are helping them vote and saying: ‘Yeah, I can vouch for this madness,’ said the insider.
“They have perfected this system. This is what they do. They will tell you we are applying for your ballot. They take a picture of your social security and your driver’s license. They have a database. When the ballot comes, they track it, sometimes, they make fake emails. They track the ballot. Then, they come and pick up the ballot: unopened.”
The PV video also provides deleted Snapchat video made on July 1 &2 by ballot harvester Liban Mohamed where he is showing off his collected absentee ballots.
“Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentees’ ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these, my car is full,” says Hohamed.
“We got 300 today for Jamal Osman only.”
Chief Legal officer with PV Jered Ede says Mohamed and fellow ballot harvesters have possibly violated state and federal law. Penalties for the star and federal violations range from fines of $10,000 to five years prison sentence.
