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Miami-Dade School Board member Carlos Curbelo, a likely Republican challenger to Garcia, called on the Monroe County state attorney to also investigate potential fraud. Congressional District 26 runs from Kendall to Key West.
“The voters of Monroe County deserve to know if they, too, were victimized by Mr. Garcia and his campaign,” Curbelo said in a statement.
No investigation is under way in Monroe, State Attorney Catherine Vogel’s office told The Herald, though the office on Monday offered to assist Fernández Rundle, if needed. Joe Garcia said his understanding from his conversation with Jeffrey Garcia was that the operation was limited to Miami-Dade.
Jeffrey Garcia’s company did web videos last year for Democrat Patrick Murphy of Jupiter, who ousted Republican Rep. Allen West in a district that stretches along Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.
Garcia had nothing to do with voter outreach or absentee ballots for Murphy’s campaign, said Eric Johnson, Murphy’s lead campaign consultant and now his chief of staff.
In a statement, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee praised Joe Garcia’s dismissal of his chief of staff.
“Joe Garcia has taken quick action to hold these staffers responsible, and local investigators have stated they do not believe Joe Garcia was involved or even knew anything about this incident,” said David Bergstein, the DCCC’s southern regional press secretary. “Thankfully these ballots had zero impact on the election.”
The elections department’s software detected 2,552 fraudulent requests in the primary, and none of the ballots were sent. Nearly 500 requests were directed at Democrats in Garcia’s congressional district and came from traceable Internet Provider addresses — at least two of them in Miami, a Herald investigation revealed in February. That prompted prosecutors to reexamine the case.
More than 2,000 requests came in from computers masked by foreign IP addresses and targeted Republican voters in two Florida House of Representatives districts. It is unclear what, if any, relation exists between the domestic and foreign requests.
Since Friday, Garcia has been speaking with party leaders and their staffs, he acknowledged Monday, including Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, the national Democratic Party chairwoman.
“As you can imagine, my phone blew up,” he said.
Miami Herald staff writers Marc Caputo and Amy Sherman contributed to this report.
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