The Seminole Tribe of Florida has retaliated against an alleged Las Vegas Sands-backed ballot measure for “brazenly breaching” Florida’s election regulations in an attempt to collect voter signatures. 

Las Vegas Sands breaches civil and criminal statues

The “Limited Authorization of Casino Gaming” campaign is believed to be backed and funded “almost entirely” by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. According to the tribe, it corrupts Florida’s petition process by “blatantly breaching civil and criminal statutes” in an alleged effort to get unlawful access to the state’s ballots.

The complaint comes from a political action organization backed by the tribe, Standing Up for Florida, and its president, political strategist Pradeep “Rick” Asani. The committee has filed a counterclaim in Leon County circuit court, alleging that the LVS-supported political committee, Florida Voters in Charge, paid petition gatherers on a per-signature basis. Such practices, as well as the shredding and forging of petitions, are prohibited in the state of Florida.

Meanwhile, Florida Voters in Charge initially claimed that parties acting on the Seminoles’ behalf “improperly interfered with its petitioning. The FVC-PAC has been accused of engaging professional petition gatherers, as described in a document released by the circuit court for the second judicial circuit in and for Leon County, Florida.

They, in turn, are accused of presenting petitions to various election supervisors based on unlawfully obtained information and attempting to utilize the court to restrict free speech and competitive labor recruiting through the use of illegal and unenforceable employment connections.

In addition,, after receiving over $27 million in contributions from “foreign entities,” the money was allegedly sent to FVC-agent, PAC’s Game Day Strategies, to supervise the petition collection contractors in Florida. Among them are Grassfire, Human Connection, Dunton, and I&R. These alleged contracts stated that petition gatherers would be compensated based on the amount of signatures collected and filed, a payment structure that is prohibited under Florida law.

According to the counterclaim suit, FVC submitted over 400,000 petitions that have been verified by election officials, requesting that all petitions obtained through the allegedly illegal payment scheme implemented by GDS be declared null and void and not certified in an attempt to amend Florida’s constitution.

According to an affidavit filed by George Riley, a Leon County citizen who has worked in the political consulting profession since 2008, he was aware that Game Day was “working on behalf of Las Vegas Sands.”

Riley testified that he declined a contract with Game Day, which was later provided to the court as evidence, due to its compensation services depending on the amount of signatures gathered – stressing section 4.01(a) of the contract titled Fees and Expenses. Riley said in his affidavit that “total compensation shall be determined by the total number of legitimate petitions submitted as specified in (b) below.”

Quotes from the Press Release

“Section 4.01(b) provides that I would have received a $450,00 initial deposit. Following that, contractors shall be compensated $450,000 for each 25,000 petitions submitted, up to a maximum total payout of $2.7 million.

“At this rate, compensation for 250,000 signatures would be $18 per signature.”

Morever, the court records referenced testimony from an employee and a former subcontractor of Grassfire, who stated that the company reportedly shredded and deleted certain petitions in addition to the allegedly fraudulent contracts.