Funded almost entirely by Florida Realtors, the Vote Yes on 3 campaign is hoping to get Amendment 3 passed this November and has raised over $21.5 million to make this happen. Campaign finance records show that over 98% of the political committee’s expenditures are going to a political operative tied to one of Florida’s biggest election fraud scandals in the last decade.
According to public campaign finance records, the Vote Yes on 3 political committee has spent $14,465,117 in a series of payments between Sept. 8 through Oct. 9, with the vast majority of it ($14,213,745) going directly to a vendor listed as SGS Inc. in Gainesville.
Owned by longtime GOP operative Patrick Bainter, SGS Inc. advertises itself as a full-service polling, communications and political operations company, and since it’s a private institution, it’s unclear exactly how it’s spending the money. But the company does share an address (6211 NW 132nd St.) with another one of Bainter’s companies, Data Targeting.
Back in 2020, Data Targeting was embroiled in a “ghost candidate” election fraud scandal that saw Republican and former State Sen. Frank Artiles convicted of three felonies and sentenced to two months in jail.
Essentially, Artiles was accused of helping Republican Ileana Garcia get elected to the Florida Senate by recruiting his friend, an auto parts salesman in Miami named Alex Rodríguez who never even campaigned or had a party affiliation, to run against District 37 Democratic incumbent José Javier Rodríguez.
The idea, according to prosecutors, was to siphon off enough votes because they have the same last name. Ultimately it worked, and Ileana Garcia won by just 34 votes after a recount.
According to NBC Miami, emails subpoenaed by prosecutors showed that Data Targeting paid Artiles over $90,000 plus expenses to “keep tabs” on José Javier Rodríguez, including who he had lunch with, and getting reimbursed for “research” and plane tickets. In September 2020, Artiles even wrote in an email that he was “standing by for orders” from Bainter, reports the station.
Bainter, and his company, reportedly cooperated with prosecutors and was never charged with a crime.
While he’s been a major player in state politics for over three decades, Bainter’s most recent payments from the Vote Yes on 3 campaign seem to dwarf his previous jobs. For example, campaign finance records show that through the entire 2024 election cycle, Data Targeting was paid a total of $8,696,113, mostly from a handful of Florida Republican candidates and organizations. SGS Inc., on the other hand, was paid a total of $4,067,524.84, with the Realtors Political Advocacy Committee listed as the primary benefactors.
Creative Loafing Tampa Bay reached out to Bainter and the Florida Realtors association for comment with a detailed list of questions and will include any response we receive.
If approved by voters, Amendment 3 would raise the homestead exemption on non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. It would also lower the annual assessment growth cap from 10% to 5% for non-homestead properties such as commercial buildings and rental units, and would require people moving to Florida after Dec. 31 to wait five years in continuous residency before qualifying for the full increased exemption.
The proposal, backed by Florida Gov. DeSantis, needs 60% support from voters, but recent polls have showed declining support, with one poll from EDGE Communications and MDW Communications showing “yes” votes at 50 percent, “no” votes at 27 percent and “undecided” at just 23 percent.
This story first appeared in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
