Ron DeSantis announces 20 charged for voter fraud in Florida

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Florida Republican, announced on Thursday that 20 people in his state have been charged with voter fraud.

Most of those charged hailed from Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami Dade counties and voted in 2020 despite being prohibited from voting due to convictions of murder or sexual assault, DeSantis revealed. Voter fraud is a third-degree felony in Florida, and those convicted of it could face a fine of up to $5,000 and up to five years behind bars.

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“It’s not just going to be 20 arrests — this is the opening salvo of an office that was just set up on July 1,” DeSantis said. “This is the first step. There will be more that happen over the weeks and months [ahead]. And hopefully there’s not a lot of cases that need to be prosecuted for 2022.”

Under Florida law, people convicted of murder or sexual assault are disenfranchised from voting unless they adhere to the proper restoration process, which the 20 people who face charges failed to do, DeSantis said.

He teased that the state has opened a number of reviews pertaining to elections, such as people voting in multiple districts and illegal immigrants casting their ballots in violation of Florida law.

“Now this is only one class of voters that we know have violated the law. There are investigations ongoing into people that have voted in two different jurisdictions, and I imagine you are going to see prosecutions on that,” DeSantis said. “We also have folks who are voting who are illegal aliens.”

State authorities are in the process of arresting the 20 people, he said. The flurry of charges is the result of a collaboration between the Office of Election Crimes and Security and Florida’s Office of the Attorney General.

“And you may think that 20 voters is not a lot, but you’re in Broward County, and you know that you just elected a person to Congress this year by five votes,” Peter Antonacci, the director of the Office of Election Crimes and Security, said during a press conference Thursday.

Last month, Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security went “live” after DeSantis supported the office’s creation in response to the 2020 election, when supporters of former President Donald Trump peddled heavily disputed claims that election fraud wrongly deprived Trump of victory.

DeSantis argued that Florida carried out one of the best elections in the country in 2020, but he conceded that there was room for improvement and touted election integrity measures Florida’s legislature recently enacted. This includes reforms such as creating the Office of Election Crimes and Security, banning “Zuckerbucks,” and prohibiting ballot harvesting.

“You can have all these great policy reforms, and it’s important to do it, but if it’s not actually enforced, then what difference is it going to make at the end of the day. The fact of the matter is if there are certain rules and regulations in place, if people don’t think that those are going to be enforced, you’re going to have more violations,” DeSantis said.

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DeSantis also revealed that 67 supervisors of elections are being ordered to preserve documents pertaining to the 2020 election.

The Thursday event was billed as a “major announcement” on upholding election integrity laws, according to his office.