A Florida election lawsuit has exposed a loophole in federal voter registration law that allows people to register to vote without providing a driver’s license or Social Security number for verification.

A Republican congressional candidate is suing Florida election officials over “clone” voters found on voter rolls and questionable mail-in ballot requests, as the number of votes he lost by is less than the allegedly compromised vote-by-mail ballots. However, the lawsuit also reveals a loophole in both Florida law and federal law that allows people to register to vote without providing either a driver’s license number or Social Security number.

Robert “Rocky” Rochford, a Republican and retired U.S. Navy captain, ran against Rep. Kathy Castor (D) in Florida’s 14th U.S. Congressional District in the November election. Rochford lost the election to Castor, the incumbent, by nearly 58,000 votes.

He initially filed an election contest in late November, based on the number of questionable mail-in ballot requests and “clone” voters. However, he has since dropped the election contest and is now only suing over voter roll issues and the questionable mail-in ballot requests.

According to a January filing for Rochford’s lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court, he argues that there was “a total of approximately 122,971 compromised vote-by-mail ballots, of which approximately 96,188 were voted” in Florida’s 14th Congressional District general election.

The Amended Complaint claims that the mail-in ballot requests were “compromised” because they were submitted “when the Voter Fraud Protection System was off or being overridden.” The court filings also said that “On September 9, 2024, in Pinellas County alone, 198,166 requests were dumped into the system in Pinellas County, and those requests were made with the Voter Fraud Protection System turned off or somehow overridden.”

Rochford's pleadings also assert that “This is known as there were 37,495 unacceptable Requests for Vote-by-Mail which were accepted notwithstanding that they did not provide a Driver’s License Number, a Florida Voter Identification Number, or the last 4 digits of a social security number. The only way that those requests without that vital information could have been processed was by having the Voter Fraud Protection System turned off or somehow overridden."

Duplicate voters

The case also details the “clone” voters that were found on the voter rolls. “An examination of the Voter Roll shows that there is a multitude of ‘clones’ in the lists of the voters who are registered to vote in Florida,” according to court papers. “They are referred to as ‘clones’ because they are either duplicates or near-duplicates except that invariably, they have different voter identification numbers.

The pleadings continued to assert that “By having clones of other voters with unique Voter ID Numbers, the system is open for individuals who can access or ‘hack’ into the government’s computers to cast votes of the dormant clones in a manner with [sic] would be undetectable. Moreover, if this is coupled with the procedures to vote by mail, as in the situation which occurred in the 2024 Election the entire Voter Roll system will be shown to be corrupted."

Rochford is requesting “a Final Judgment declaring that the Voter Rolls of Florida are corrupted”; that the defendants be required to “investigate all causes for all issues regarding possible clone voters in the systems, aberrations of huge numbers of Mail-In Ballot requests, which are statistically impossible or almost impossible, and the overriding of all safety precautions on the internet"; and “to obtain the discovery as to the Voter Rolls of Pinellas County, Hillsborough County, and of the State of Florida as a whole, and to Order the Defendants to provide access to or produce any and all records related to the Voter Rolls and the voting which was done in 2024.”

One of the issues with some of the questionable mail-in ballot requests comes from a loophole in federal law, which Florida’s law mimics.

Election Integrity Network Founder Cleta Mitchell responded to queries from Just the News on Wednesday, writing that the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) “requires states to create and maintain a computerized statewide list of eligible voters, and it also requires states to take certain verification steps before adding anyone to the computerized list of eligible voters.”

No verification required

“What is SUPPOSED to happen is that anyone who applies to register to vote is supposed to provide a driver's license number to the election office to confirm residency and identity. If the applicant does not have a driver’s license then the applicant is supposed to provide the last 4 digits of his/her social security number — and then, the election office is supposed to verify the identity of the applicant with the social security Help America Vote Verification database,” Mitchell explained.

However, “IF a person has NEITHER a driver’s license NOR a social security number, under federal law, THAT PERSON IS STILL SUPPOSED TO BE REGISTERED! And the ONLY requirement is for the election office to assign that registrant a unique voter identifier number. That’s it,” she added in her response to Just The News.

Florida’s law requires that a person register to vote with a Florida driver’s license or a Florida identification card. They can also register to vote with a Social Security number if they do not have a license or ID card. However, if a person doesn’t have any of those, then they must affirm their eligibility to vote “in the manner prescribed in the uniform statewide voter registration application,” according to state law.

“In other words, there is no verification required under either federal or state law in order to be accepted as a registered voter,” Mitchell said. “It is a problem that ONLY CONGRESS can fix, as that is the federal law, which is then mirrored by the states. It is terrible. And once Congress fixes the federal statute, then the states must fix their laws as well,” she added.