DeSantis Hails Voter Fraud Crackdown, but Start Is Slow

Seven weeks after Florida’s state authorities opened a brand new workplace of election crimes and safety, Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned on Thursday that 17 individuals had been charged with casting unlawful ballots within the 2020 election, during which 11.1 million Floridians voted.

The governor known as the arrests “a primary salvo” in a long-overdue crackdown on voting crimes. Critics known as the announcement a publicity stunt that mentioned much less about voter fraud than about holes within the state’s election safety equipment that had allowed the violations to happen within the first place.

Mr. DeSantis, who’s searching for re-election this yr and is extensively thought-about to be operating an unannounced marketing campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has made motion towards voter fraud a centerpiece of his tenure as governor. He provided essential backing final yr to laws tightening the principles for registering to vote and casting ballots. The State Legislature allotted $1.1 million for his 15-person election crimes workplace after he proposed its creation late final yr.

However whereas the specter of widespread fraud has develop into a staple of Republican political rhetoric, there isn’t a proof that election crimes are a significant issue in Florida or wherever else within the nation. There and elsewhere, most violations seem to contain individuals who ran afoul of legal guidelines that prohibit voting by former felons, or individuals who solid two ballots, normally in separate states the place they spend completely different elements of the yr.

Specialists say that a lot of these violations look like inadvertent. The 17 individuals charged on Thursday have been all felons, convicted of homicide or intercourse offenses, who have been barred by regulation from casting ballots. All however one have been males, and all however two have been of their 50s or older.

Casting an ineligible poll is a felony punishable by as much as 5 years’ imprisonment and as much as $5,000 in fines. “That was towards the regulation, and now they’re going to pay for it,” Mr. DeSantis mentioned.

The governor mentioned extra arrests have been forthcoming, and recommended that they would come with so-called double voters and noncitizens who solid unlawful ballots — one other offense that specialists say is steadily the results of confusion about voting guidelines.

He added {that a} paucity of voting fraud prosecutions lately displays a scarcity of enforcement, not a scarcity of fraud.

“Now now we have the power with the lawyer normal and statewide prosecutors to deliver these instances on behalf of the state,” he mentioned. He mentioned that if anybody is considering of committing electoral crimes: “Don’t do it, as a result of we’re coming for you.”

Native regulation enforcement officers made a flurry of voting-related arrests this spring after a researcher who scanned voting rolls claimed to have discovered scores of convicted intercourse offenders who solid ballots in 2020, though a constitutional modification bars them from voting.

A gaggle that advocates restoring voting rights to former felons mentioned on Thursday that not one of the 17 individuals arrested would have confronted prices had the state not allowed them to register and vote, regardless of their ineligibility.

“When somebody registers to vote, it’s the duty of the state to make the most of its huge assets to find out an individual’s eligibility,” Desmond Meade, the manager director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, mentioned at a information convention. “And as soon as that particular person is eligible to vote, that particular person is issued a voter identification card.”

Mr. Meade mentioned state cash could be higher spent on bettering voter registration programs to display out probably ineligible voters than on discovering and prosecuting them.

“What we’ve seen immediately is a sign that the system is damaged,” he mentioned. “These people ought to by no means have gotten thus far.”

Mr. DeSantis’s announcement drew fast rebuttals from two Democrats who’re vying to oppose him within the November election for governor.

“Everyone desires elections to be safe, however Ron DeSantis — who has by no means refuted Donald Trump’s Huge Lie — is the final particular person we are able to belief with ‘election police,’” Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner and Florida’s highest-ranking Democrat, mentioned in a press release. “As governor, I’ll disband this power and return jurisdiction again to native authorities.”

Consultant Charlie Crist, a former Florida governor, who’s operating towards Ms. Fried in subsequent week’s main election, mentioned in a press release that Mr. DeSantis’s information convention was “about taking part in politics, intimidating Democratic voters and his need to run for president, not securing elections.”