PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — On Monday, 59-year-old Phillip Edward French was arrested for allegedly casting two ballots in the 2020 presidential election.
According to documents obtained by 8 On Your Side Investigator Mahsa Saeidi, French cast a ballot in Pinellas County on Oct. 25, 2020, after he had allegedly voted in Hanover County, Virginia on Sep. 23, 2020.
He received a felony charge of casting more than one ballot at any election. On Tuesday, French declined to comment on the accusations.
Pinellas County authorities uncovered the alleged misconduct utilizing the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national voter database designed to combat voter fraud.
Julie Marcus is the elections supervisor in Pinellas County. Marcus referred the case to the State Attorney’s Office after an in-depth investigation.
“As an election administrator, we take the integrity of the process very seriously,” Marcus said, “that information from Virginia came down through ERIC.”
French’s arrest occurred the same day Florida terminated its membership with ERIC, citing concerns about partisanship and voter security.
“As Secretary of State, I have an obligation to protect the personal information of Florida’s citizens, which the ERIC agreement requires us to share,” Secretary of State Cord Byrd said in a press release.
“Florida has tried to back reforms to increase protections, but these protections were refused. Therefore, we have lost confidence in ERIC.”
Now, Florida’s election officials are figuring out the next steps.
“List maintenance is critical to an electoral process, it’s the front end, it’s the registration process, you want to keep your voter rolls very clean, so anything that we can do, any tools that we can have as election administrators will help keep that process accurate so that when we go into the elections we can have confidence in our processes,” Marcus said.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of ERIC calls allegations “misinformation.”
In an open letter, the organization said it follows widely accepted security protocols.