Arresting 20 for 'Voter Fraud,' DeSantis Bid for President Is Underway
The office for election crimes and security has struck gold in Florida - so they say
(Originally published in August 2022)
It’s odd getting arrested for something that doesn’t exist.
“What are you in for?”
“Mugged the tooth fairy.”
Voter fraud, in theory, exists, but, in reality, it is about as common as Halley’s Comet — actually even less often.
As MIT elections scholar Charles Stewart and National Vote At Home Institute CEO Amber McReynolds noted in an April op-ed, that puts the rate of mail ballots resulting in criminal convictions at 0.0006% and the rate of mail ballots resulting in any kind of official action at 0.00007% (More Likely to be Struck by Lightning).
Ron Desantis, the man many consider capable of dislodging the Republican Party from the grip of Donald Trump, has seemingly just launched his bid for the nomination of his party for president in 2024.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced that the state is in the process of arresting 20 ex-felons — mostly in South Florida — for voter fraud tied to the 2020 election, the first round of what he promises will be a wave of voter fraud arrests (DeSantis Announces 20 Arrests).
The scariest words here are “the first round of what he promises will be a wave of arrests.”
First of all, how does he know there will be more? When arresting people on trumped-up charges to score political points, I guess it’s pretty easy to fulfill promises of more arrests.
Across the nation, delusional Republicans are choosing candidates whose only qualification for office is that they profess a gospel of their Lord Donald that his unholiness was denied a second term because of rampant voter fraud. It does not matter that the only cases of voter fraud prosecuted after the 2020 election were of Trump supporters voting for dead relatives.
It also does not bother Republicans that Trump and a coterie of advisors like Rudolph Giuliani, allegedly Lindsey Graham, and many others were actively trying to overturn the legally certified results of the election up through the January 6th Congressional certification.
None of this voter fraud counts, though.
DeSantis show trials
Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, has done more to disenfranchise Black voters in Florida than anyone in recent history.
The executive director at Florida Rising, Andrea Mercado, sees the arrests as an ongoing effort by DeSantis to deny Floridians likely not to support him free and easy access to voting in his state.
“No one has done more to violate the integrity of Florida’s elections and make it harder for Floridians to be part of our democracy than Ron DeSantis,” she said. “If we had a real election integrity department, they would arrest the governor for erasing Black districts and threatening neighbors helping neighbors cast their ballot (DeSantis Announces 20 Arrests).”
It doesn’t take a political rocket scientist to see where this will take us, either. DeSantis has often been called more Trump than Trump. One of my Trump-exhausted friends says that the great appeal of DeSantis is that he packs all of the extremist good intentions of Trump but without the baggage and mania of Trump.
The fact that DeSantis has proven highly capable of putting forth his right-wing, racist policies while always keeping his ego safely stowed away shows he is a political force the right wants and needs. His focus on the ends, not the means, has effectively turned Florida into a quasi-authoritarian state.
The massive press conference the governor called also portends more political oppression for Democrats. Flanked by police and election officials, DeSantis said that the arrested come from the Democrat-heavy counties of Palm, Broward, and Miami-Dade.
DeSantis held no similar press conference earlier this year when four men from The Villages, a sprawling retirement community that leans heavily Republican, were arrested for attempting to cast multiple ballots (DeSantis Announces 20 Arrests).
DeSantis has long positioned himself as a voter-fraud Wiesenthal-type character. By making Florida a sort of Trumpian political Disney world, he makes the case that Trump-style authoritarianism is possible and doesn’t need the movement’s distracting, self-possessed founder.
DeSantis set up the Office of Election Crimes and Security earlier this year. If you set up a special office and the second word in the name is “crimes,” then it makes sense that crimes will be found. The newly employed Floridians did not let their master down.
The first round, announced during a press conference in Broward County, was focused on felons who illegally voted in 2020 by either not properly applying to have their voting rights restored or were ineligible because of the severity of their crimes (DeSantis Announces 20 Arrests).
Anyone who has had a felony and then tried to restore their right to vote can attest that it’s not an easy process. Many felons who have served their time simply don’t know that until they formally request restoration of voting rights, it is still illegal to cast a vote — this is where the DeSantis Orwellian Office for Elections Crimes and Security trapped its victims.
I highly doubt the 20 guilty Floridians were purposely trying to defraud the vote.
If they had been caught casting second votes like the Republican voters in The Villages, this is definitely voter fraud. Everyone knows they are permitted only one vote.
Nevertheless, with his appetite whetted, DeSantis and his voting stormtroopers will be coming for more “guilty” Floridians.
“This is just the first step. There are many more in the pipeline,” DeSantis said. “We are not just going to turn a blind eye to this. The days of that happening in Florida are over.”
DeSantis said that the office is actively investigating people who have voted in two states and undocumented immigrants who he says may have voted illegally in Florida. He provided no specific details about those ongoing investigations (DeSantis Announces 20 Arrests).
Guess what, he will “find” them, I am sure.
All of this is like music to the ears of extremist Republicans in the hinterlands of our dying democracy. All this makes them stand up straighter and smile that there is still hope of making America “great again.”