Fourth resident of The Villages in Florida arrested for alleged voter fraud

A fourth resident of Florida’s The Villages retirement community has been arrested for alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Charles Franklin Barnes, 64, was arrested and taken to Sumter County jail on a charge of casting more than one ballot in an election.

He was later released from custody on a $2,000 bail but if convicted of the third-degree felony faces up to five years in prison.

Mr Barnes, who is not affiliated with any political party in the state, was also registered to vote in his home state of Connecticut in 2020, according to Orlando’s News 6.

The Florida retirement community hosted a Donald Trump rally in October 2020, which was attended by thousands of residents.

Three other residents have also been arrested for allegedly casting ballots in Florida as well as their home state.

John Rider, Jay Ketcik and Joan Halstead, who were all registered Republicans at the time of the election, have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The one-term president falsely claimed that he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden because of widespread voter fraud, which has been debunked and rejected by courts across the US.

Florida’s secretary of state opened a voter fraud investigation in May after anonymous emails were sent from a whistleblower using the pseudonym “Totes Legit Votes”.

The “citizen election integrity analysts” told officials they had used publicly available voter registration data to identify voters in Florida who may also have cast ballots in other states.

“I believe that if hundreds of people sign sworn affidavits that they saw election irregularities, people should at least try to check into it,” they told News 6.

“You can’t claim ‘the system is working’ if random internet people have to find the violations for you.”