Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced he aims to create a new police unit to pursue election crime full-time. DeSantis urged the legisla...
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced he aims to create a new police unit to pursue election crime full-time. DeSantis urged the legislation and told lawmakers to increase the penalties for election fraud.
The Office of Election Crimes and Security would find, apprehend, and punish criminals who interfere in the state’s elections.
“I guarantee you this: The first person that gets caught, no one is going to want to do it again after that,” DeSantis promised.
“You look at the things going on. You see Big Tech. You see corporate media. They weren’t very happy with Virginia last night,” DeSantis said about Tuesday’s election.
“You look at that you look at what’s going on with some of the big corporations with their woke agenda. When you look at the Biden or Brandon administration…” he added only to be interrupted by cheers of “Let’s Go Brandon!”
DeSantis did a quick timeout to explain the origin of the “Let’s Go Brandon!” chant.
The Florida governor also went into more detail about the proposed election crimes bureau.
“We are excited to say that next legislative session we are proposing another package of election integrity reforms that will make Florida the number one state for elections,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “I am excited that with this legislation, our state will be able to enforce election violations, combat voter fraud and make sure violators are held accountable. If potential violators know they will be held accountable, they will be much less likely to engage in improper conduct in the first place.”
At the event, Governor DeSantis called on the Legislature to take four additional steps to safeguard our elections:
- Establish an Office of Election Crimes and Security within the Department of State to investigate election crimes and fraud;
- Elevate the crime of ballot harvesting to a third-degree felony, recognizing that this offense is a serious attack on democracy;
- Require timelines for supervisors of elections to clean the voter rolls of ineligible voters; and
- Prohibit unsecure, haphazard drop box locations in Florida.
The 2022 legislative proposal builds on election integrity legislation signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in May 2021 through Senate Bill 90. In 2021, Governor DeSantis worked with the Florida Legislature to “strengthen voter identification, prohibit the mass mailing of ballots, ban ballot harvesting and prohibit private money (Zuckerbucks) from influencing elections,” in the state, a press release on the event stated, adding that the Florida Department of State is posting the state’s election audit results on its website for any Floridian to access. If only more states would follow suit.
No comments