month
an election scheme involving paying people Cash Money for their votes
was allegedly uncovered playing itself out in broad daylight
specifically this was an election scheme where in homeless people were transported from shelters
over to the voting booths
dropped off and essentially forced to vote in exchange for money
and the details of this alleged scheme are pretty wild so let's go through them together
to start with this alleged scheme all took place over in the city of Springfield Massachusetts
which just for your reference is the third largest city in the state at
least in terms of population
and like most of Massachusetts the city of Springfield is a Democrat stronghold meaning
that whoever wins the Democrat primary is almost certainly going to win any city wide election
and so with that as the general big drop the city of Springfield recently
held their primary elections for mayor
and in the Democrat primary there were several candidates I believe there
were five candidates in total
but for the purposes of today's discussion these are the two that will focus up
you had Mr Dominic sar no who is the incumbent mayor and then you
have the frontrunner Mr Justin Hurst
who was a city councillor looking to become mayor now on the surface this
is all well and good
going from city councillor to mayor is a natural progression of apolitical career
however according to reports from local media according to surveillance footage
as well as sworn affidavits from several of the election workers on site
well Mr hurt's campaign allegedly got a bit you can say creative with how
they were getting the vote
specifically according to an affidavit from the Springfield elections commissioner quote
videotape shows individuals being dropped off in black Suburbans and expeditions and
entering City Hall to vote
when they exit it a man takes out what appears to be
a large bundle of cash
and peels off a bill for each individual and indeed
what's truly interesting about this particular case at least in my opinion is that we don't
have to rely solely on these sworn affidavits
that's because the actual surveillance footage was published online by a local
news outlet called Massachusetts lot
took a look so what you're seeing on screen right now is security footage
that was shot right outside of City Hall on the morning of October 28
this was during the period of early voting in the mayoral election
and what we see here is that at approximately nine AM in the morning
what appears to be Mr Justin Hertz pulls up in a black
SUV then as you can see
several people proceed to get out of the car and walk toward City Hall
then the black SUV drives away however just a few moments later another black
SUV comes to the very same spot
and wouldn't you know it Mr Hertz then drives up next to that car and he
exchanges some words with the driver then the doors of that second sec open
and the first man comes out the man in the red shirt he hovers
a little bit on the sidewalk
and he's followed by the driver the man with whom Mr hurts
was speaking to a moment earlier
afterwards we can see more people coming out of the car and also we can see
a third car the red minivan come to the curb and drop even more people off
and as you can see the driver of that black SV
he appears to be standing there and directing all these people from all these different cars
to head and side City Hall now we don't actually have footage of what it was
like inside City Hall but according to sworn affidavits from the election workers
many of the people who came in they listed their address as
being a local homeless shelter
furthermore the affidavits claim that many of these voters who came inside
were noticeably either drunk or under the influence of drugs
and many of them were confused about why they even came to
City Hall in the first place
and that as these people were being processed for voting by the election workers
well one of the election workers
she wrote in her affidavit that she saw a man quote hovering over some
of the voters shoulders while they were standing at the voting booth
at times he appeared to be pointing at the place on the ballot where the persons
should vote also several of the election workers as well as a local police officer who
was working City Hall that day they claimed that many of these individuals
came up to them multiple times throughout the day and asked them
where they're supposed to go
in order to get the ten dollars that they were promised as payment
for instance you had miss Daisy Lorenzana who was working as an election official
on that particular day and she wrote this in her sworn affidavit quote I
heard people asking where is my payment and I was promised ten dollars
I had seven people asked me directly where their ten dollar payment was
one man said in Spanish vote for Hurst and you'll get ten dollars
furthermore we really don't just have to take their word for it
because it appears that this exchange of money was rather blatant here's again the
security footage from right outside City Hall
as you can see the people are coming out of the building
after they voted and once outside
the election workers wrote in their affidavits that they witnessed a campaign volunteer for
Mr Hurst he's the man who is driving that second blacks UV
he was handing out Cash Money to the people who just voted if
they were able to show him that they had a sticker which
confirmed that they cast their vote
in the video footage you can even see that the man after handing one woman some
money gave her a little hug as well
and that the icing on the cake is that some of these individuals were then led
down the street before getting into that other blacks Levi P the one that we saw
earlier being driven by Mr Hurst himself
and so just to summarize here you have five election workers as well as a local
police officer all sign sworn affidavits saying that they witnessed carloads of people
many of whom were coming from a local homeless shelter getting dropped off at
City Hall stumbling into vote
seemingly getting coerced in terms of who to vote for and then
many of them would ask around for where they can get the ten dollars that they
were promised in order to vote
then this surveillance footage from the actual sidewalk outside of City Hall
it appears to show a man
who drove these individuals hand up money to them before shuffling them away in
a car that appears to be driven by the actual candidate
that is if nothing else a creative campaign strategy
now after these allegations affidavits and surveillance footage came to light Mr
Justin Hurst he came out
and he publicly denied that his campaign was involved in any sort
of cash for vote scheme
hears specifically what he said in a press conference quote these accusations are not
only insulting to our dedicated campaign supporters
but to all residents who are exercising their constitutional right
Mr Hurst then went onto say that these five election employees as well as
the local police officer who gave their sworn testimony regarding what they saw
they're actually lying on behalf of the incumbent mayor here's what he added quote we don't
give money in exchange for votes
I don't know how much clearer I can be and of course it is beyond worth
mentioning that here in America everyone no matter who is innocent until proven guilty and as
such an investigation will have to be done
in order to get to the bottom of what really took place here and indeed
the Massachusetts Secretary of state responded to all this evidence with the following statement
any allegations of money being exchanged for votes is certainly concerning and deserves further investigation
my office has been in touch with law enforcement as we would be with any report
of a potential irregularity to ensure that the integrity of the process is maintained
those are beautiful words however as of today
the District Attorney's office has not yet confirmed whether an investigation into this matter
has been opened so we'll just have to wait and see
whether they'll take up the case or not and just for your reference in case you
are watching this episode and wondering
it is patently illegal to exchange money for votes within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
here specifically what the relevant part of the relevant statute states
quote no person shall directly or indirectly pay
give or promise to a voter any gift or reward to influence his vote or to
induce him to withhold his vote
violation of any provision of the section shall be punished by imprisonment for not
more than one year however again as of this morning when I checked
the District Attorney's office has not yet updated anything regarding this case so will
just have to wait and see whether they actually open up any full scale
investigation into what took place here
if he like to go deeper into this particular case including watching the full surveillance footage
I'll throw all my research notes down into the description box below this video
free to peruse at your own Leisure
then also I like to mention that if you subscribe to this YouTube channel which of
course why wouldn't you its great content
but if you subscribe then you likely notice that within the span
of about the last week
there have been three stories regarding election fraud that we published coming out of the northeast
you had the case over in Connecticut the case over in New Jersey and now as
of today the case over in Massachusetts
and what's funny about it is that aside from a few local
news outlets and those municipalities
these stories get hardly any attention at the national level
wanna make you wonder why that is but of course I will mention that we hear
at the Epoch Times we do make a point to cover these stories
and give them the attention that at least in my opinion they deserve until
next time I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times stay informed