Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs bill creating new election police unit

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a invoice Monday to create a police pressure devoted to cracking down on voter fraud and different election crimes.

The brand new regulation, S.B. 524, creates an “Workplace of Election Crimes and Safety” to analyze allegations of voter fraud. It will increase the penalty for poll harvesting from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony, punishable by as much as 5 years in jail. It additionally requires the Florida Division of State to strengthen ID necessities for mail-in ballots, requires voter rolls to be checked yearly for ineligible voters and prevents election supervisors from receiving so-called “Zuckerbucks.”

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The time period “Zuckerbucks” refers to Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg’s funding of election operations. In the course of the 2020 election cycle, the Zuckerberg-Chan Initiative, based by Zuckerberg and his spouse, gave greater than $350 million to native state jurisdictions to allegedly assist counties run their elections safely throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A Philadelphia election employee scans ballots for the 2020 common election in the US on the Pennsylvania Conference Middle, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, in Philadelphia. (AP Picture/Matt Slocum)

Nonetheless, a report from the Heritage Basis’s Each day Sign discovered that in Pennsylvania, some counties had reportedly used funds for ‘get out the vote’ efforts and for prices unrelated to the fund’s ostensible objectives. The Pennsylvania Division of State and 23 jurisdictions obtained $20 million from the Middle for Tech and Civic Life — which distributed the funds from the Zuckerberg-Chan Initiative.

DeSantis took to Twitter to tout his signing of the invoice writing, “The laws I signed at this time will proceed to make Florida a pacesetter in election integrity by rising penalties for poll harvesting, increasing our ban on Zuckerbucks, and establishing an election integrity unit in state authorities to implement our legal guidelines.”

Democrats, the minority get together within the state Legislature, have criticized the invoice as a method for DeSantis to attraction to Republican voters who consider the 2020 election outcomes had been fraudulent whereas he flirts with a presidential run of his personal. 

The Related Press and Fox Information’ Charles Creitz contributed to this report.