Man from The Villages serving time for voting using dead dad's ballot
WILDWOOD, Fla. - Robert Rivernider, a 58-year-old man who lives in The Villages, is currently serving a 180-day jail sentence after he was convicted of voter fraud.
"It makes us all look bad," said Tommy Jamieson, founder of the Villages Maga Club.
Reports say Rivernider signed and sealed a mail-in ballot for his deceased father back in 2020. The ballot was signed and sealed on Oct. 16, 2020, but postmarked on Oct. 23, three days after his father’s death.
Reports say election officials never counted that vote and reported the fraud.
Three years later, Sumter County sheriff’s deputies arrested Rivernider on Sept. 29, 2023.
"We raised a lot of questions about voter integrity, and we’re out there saying we have to do something for our elections, and then this happens. Whatever steps we take forward, this seems to set us back some," Jamieson said.
Jamieson was speaking exclusively with FOX35’s Kelsie Cairns. He says he knew Rivernider from a former Trump supporter organization of which he was a part.
He says people like Rivernider, who was previously convicted of investment fraud a decade ago, were the reason he founded his organization.
"He scammed or defrauded people out of a lot of money and showed very little empathy towards it," Jamieson said.
Aside from the investment fraud scheme for which he served time in federal prison and was ordered to pay restitution, he also has numerous lawsuits against prosecutors and the state in regard to this voter fraud case. He is also fighting another legal battle in jail.
"We do have a lawsuit against Robert Rivernider; he wrote a newsletter in Substack, and he just went after my wife Valerie and I, slandering us by calling us money launderers," he said.
Substack is a platform where users post newsletters to subscribers.
The Jamiesons’ 20-page defamation lawsuit (PDF) seeks more than $50,000 in damages.
"What was he thinking," Jamieson said.
If you suspect voter fraud in your area, reach out to your local election office to report it or a local FBI office.