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Brevard woman used son’s name to vote in 2020 presidential election, deputies say

Son voted by absentee ballot in Washington, investigators say

MELBOURNE, Fla. – A Brevard County mother was arrested Tuesday after investigators say she admitted to requesting a mail-in ballot on behalf of her son ahead of the 2020 election and casting it in Florida without his knowledge.

Sheryle Jack, 56, is charged with illegally requesting a vote by mail ballot on behalf of someone else and voting on behalf of another. Each count is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

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“I would like to say I’m so sorry for mailing my son’s ballot and filling it out,” Jack reportedly wrote in an apology letter. “I believed that I was being helpful to him because he had not been able to make it home to fill out and mail his ballot because he was delayed in the UK.”

Jack’s son voted by absentee ballot in Washington state where he had recently registered to vote, investigators said.

Her son was also registered to vote in Florida, records show.

While it is legal for someone to be registered to vote in multiple states, it is a violation of Florida law to cast more than one ballot in an election.

Jack’s son has since canceled his Florida voter registration, investigators said. He is not accused of any crimes.

Jack told detectives she did not know her son was voting in another state when she allegedly posed as her son to request a vote-by-mail ballot from the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections via an online form.

Jack did not vote in the 2020 election herself, Florida voter records confirm. She told investigators she intentionally did not cast a ballot due to a discrepancy with her address on her Florida voter registration.

Jack told investigators she did not act out of malice and did not intend to steal her son’s vote, records show, saying she was confident she voted the way her son would have voted.

Court records do not indicate how Jack voted. Both she and her son were registered as Democrats in Florida at the time of the November 2020 election, records show.

“I realize it was wrong for me to have done this, and I sincerely regret this decision,” Jack reportedly wrote after a detective offered her the opportunity to draft an apology letter.

Jack’s son told investigators he did not ask his mother to vote for him and believes she did not do so with ill intent, court records indicate.

Jack’s case is one of 15 incidents of potential voting violations being investigated by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, records show.

Four residents of The Villages in Sumter County were arrested recently for allegedly casting multiple ballots in the 2020 election.

An anonymous tipster alerted Florida elections officials to potential voting irregularities in three of those Sumter County cases, records show, while the fourth case was identified by an out-of-state election worker.

Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee, who oversees the state’s Division of Elections, has not responded to numerous questions from News 6 seeking information about the voter fraud investigations.


About the Author
Mike DeForest headshot

Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Mike DeForest has been covering Central Florida news for more than two decades.

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