Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' new election crimes unit has recommended state police open a full criminal investigation into a Democrat whistleblower's detailed complaint of a long-running, widespread ballot harvesting operation in the African-American communities in politically important central Florida.

Former Orange County Commissioner candidate Cynthia Harris filed a sworn affidavit in late August with the Secretary of State's office alleging that illegal operations to collect third-party ballots have been going on for years in the Orlando area where voting activists are paid $10 for each ballot they collect.

She described an intricate system funded by liberal leaning organizations that dispatch ballot brokers into black communities to pressure voters to turn over their ballots. The $10 fee per ballot is divvied up among the parties who help complete the harvesting.

The collection and delivery of ballots by third parties is illegal in Florida.

Harris, who narrowly lost her election for county commissioner in August, described to Just the News her years-long knowledge of ballot harvesting in the black communities in central Florida. She even recorded a ballot broker coming to her home in 2017 to collect her ballot, and obtained the script that harvester was given by her bosses to make the pitch for a voter to turn over their ballot.

"So what happens is in our community when absentee ballots are mailed, you the candidate or any political party can find out when the absentee ballots are mailed and to whom what happens is these ballot harvesters, they know which batch has gone out, they go to the door and they ask you for your absentee ballot," Harris told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show on Wednesday night.

"Well, in communities that don't look like me, no one does this," she said, referring to white neighborhoods. "But in our community it's kind of like an accepted practice that the man is coming by to pick up my absentee ballot or the lady is coming to pick up my absentee ballot."

In her sworn affidavit, Harris identifies specific individuals who direct and act as ballot brokers and were paid to collect ballots and provides intricate details on how the system allegedly works, along with emails, receipts, video footage and other evidence.

"Ballot brokers typically work up to a year in advance," she stated. "Ballot brokers visit individuals in their residences and assists the individual with filling out a request for a mail-in ballot. After the mail-in ballot arrives, the voter is instructed to wait for the ballot broker returns to the individuals residence. They are asked to not seal the certificate envelope."

"In rare circumstances, if the voter has filled out the ballot and sealed the envelope certificate, the ballot broker will take the ballot and then steam open the sealed envelope," the affidavit added. "The ballot broker will either correct any votes, if necessary, that were not voted according to their wishes or just throw them out."

Harris described how, much as in Wisconsin, vulnerable patients in rehabilitation centers and nursing homes in Florida were targeted for ballot trafficking.

"For nursing homes ... ballot brokers get the list of residents by cross referencing the address with the voter registration list," she explained. "The ballot broker figures out the best way to make contact, usually thru friends and family that may or may not know they are even part of a scheme. They help the resident fill out the mail-in-ballot or just take the mail-in-ballot from the nursing home and deliver it to the ballot broker."

Harris, who has worked as an election poll worker in the past, said her biggest concern in coming forward is that ballots collected by third parties have no chain of custody, making it easier to commit fraud such as destroying a ballot or altering it.

"You know, it's just utterly ridiculous that people don't understand that once that ballot leaves your hand and it's not placed in the mailbox, or it's not directly given to the supervisor of elections, you don't know where it goes," she said. "It's possible that they throw them away. We've seen evidence of that.

"You see them steam open the ballots and then they mismark them so that if it's not for their candidate, then that ballot is spoiled. So when people think that the numbers are low, it's really not low, it's just that someone has intercepted before it gets to the proper authorities."

Harris alleged that the Orange County supervisor of elections, who has held the office for 26 years, has turned a blind eye to ballot harvesting in her community.