Police in Florida arrested a 20-year-old man accused of changing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s address in the state’s voter database, temporarily preventing the governor from casting his vote.
Authorities arrested Anthony Guevara on Tuesday and charged him with property crime and felony voter fraud.
When DeSantis went to vote on Monday, he found that someone changed his address from Tallahassee to West Palm Beach. Secretary of State Laurel Lee said that DeSantis was able to vote as soon as the address was fixed, CNN reported.
After reviewing the voter database logs, investigators used the IP address associated with the information change to determine that the change was made by someone living in Naples, Florida. When authorities went to Guevara’s house, he told them that he was able to make the change because the state’s voter information lookup page requests a voter’s first name, last name, and date of birth to make changes, information Guevara obtained from DeSantis’s Wikipedia page. He told police the West Palm Beach address he changed the governor’s registration to was the address of a YouTube personality.
Lee told WINK News that Florida’s system was “secure” and emphasized what Guevara did was not a breach of the state’s voting system.
“Our systems are secure,” Lee said. “There has been no breach to the Florida Department of State’s systems. The Florida Department of State wants every voter to have confidence in the integrity of our elections network.”
“This incident was perpetrated using publicly accessible voter data, and there is no evidence to suggest that this change was made through the Florida Department of State,” Lee added. “We commend the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on their swift action to bringing this malicious actor to justice. The situation was corrected immediately, and the voter was able to cast a ballot.”
On Wednesday morning, Guevara was released from Collier County Jail on a $5,000 bail, according to WINK. He is a registered Republican.
