Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar is reportedly orchestrating an illegal widespread vote-harvesting scheme in Minneapolis and exploiting the city’s Somali immigrant community, according to the conservative investigative watch-dog group Project Veritas.
In a 17-minute video expose, the group features Minneapolis City Councilman Jamal Osman’s brother, Libal Mohamed, incriminating himself on Snapchat videos showing ballots piled up in the dashboard of his car.
“Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” Mohamed brags. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now… Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All of these here are absentee ballots.”
While “Ballot harvesting,” is illegal in most states, Minnesota allows third parties to collect up to three ballots for voting individuals, far fewer than the 300 shown in Mohamed’s car.
Omar Jamal, a whistleblower on the corrupt scheme who spoke to Project Veritas, told the group of Ilhan Omar’s alleged involvement, calling the entire operation an “open secret” in the community.
“She will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that,” Jamal said.
An anonymous individual identified as a former Minneapolis political worker, said an Omar campaign staffer in the state’s 5th congressional district, Ali Isse Gainey, was coordinating the efforts to gather ballots from elderly people in the Charles Horn Towers housing complex ahead of the Aug. 8 primary. Women and young people, the anonymous source added, were also reportedly paid cash for returning their ballots.
“They were carrying bags of money,” the anonymous individual said. “When you vote and they mark you off, then you get in the van, they give you cash.”
Omar dismissed the charges Monday, responding to President Donald Trump demanding the Justice Department investigate Project Veritas’ claims with a meme showcasing a “Deal or No Deal” reveal of $750 in reference to the amount of income taxes paid by the president in 2017 based on a New York Times report also published on Sunday.
https://t.co/RUQxbxIXUE pic.twitter.com/ByWCvCc4n0
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 28, 2020
The new allegations leveled by Project Veritas are likely to inflame heightened concerns over the integrity of the November elections now just more than a month away and facing record mail-in turn out over fears that in-person voting may spread the novel Wuhan coronavirus.
While Democrats object to valid Republican concerns over nationwide mail-in voting, Connecticut stands out as a case study on how in-person voting can be done in a pandemic-ridden era without spiking a new surge in coronavirus cases.
Connecticut held an in-person primary on Aug. 11. According to the New York Times, the state had 117 new confirmed cases on election day. Two weeks later on Aug. 25 the state reported 29 new cases.
