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Q&A – What’s in Florida’s Latest Election Integrity Legislation?
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Today’s Entry: Hey Brian – I saw where the new election security legislation you talked about awhile back passed. What changes with it? Thanks.
Bottom Line: Yep, another year, another election integrity bill passed by the Florida legislature. Unlike last year’s legislation/reforms which drew national attention – this year’s version largely flew under-the-radar as Democrats and their allies in news media largely focused their ire on legislation like the Parental Bill of Rights legislation, 15-week abortion limit and guidelines on teaching American history – free of the tenants of Critical Race Theory. This year’s election integrity legislation – entitled Election Administration, has multiple facets to it but the biggest reform is what it creates. Florida’s new Office of Election Crimes and Security. The office called for by Governor DeSantis in advance of the legislative session.
As I’ve documented since early December, courtesy of the findings of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, Florida currently has 156 officially referred yet unprosecuted cases of voter fraud. Almost all of them are in South Florida. Remarkably, all state attorneys who’ve not pursued these officially referred cases of voter fraud – meaning hard evidence exists that voter fraud likely occurred prompting public officials to send these cases to state attorneys – there's been no movement on any of the cases to date. Additionally, despite repeated attempts on my end to discuss these cases with the state attorneys – not one of them has been willing to discuss them with me. The bottom line is that if our prosecutors won’t prosecute voter fraud, we need someone who will. The legislation calls for a state run office which will be staffed with 25 people, 15 of which will have the authority to investigate alleged elections crimes in any jurisdiction statewide. The legislation doesn’t stop there, however. Among other reforms...
- Raises the penalties for voter registration organizations who break state laws
- Raises the penalties associated with committing voter fraud
- Requires candidates/election officials swear an oath attesting to their financial disclosures
- Bans ranked choice voting in Florida
- Mandates election observers engage in more rigorous oversight of duplicate ballots
- Allows election supervisors to add up to two additional early voting locations
- Mandates election supervisors reconcile voter rolls annually
- Requires the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to provide the Secretary of State with a list of those who are non-US citizens but have been issued state ID cards or driver’s licenses
Now, regarding the raising of the limit on fines imposed for voter registration groups who run afoul of the law? It’s currently only $1,000. What’s that to most of these highly funded interest groups? It’s a no-brainer to raise the threshold. I’d also imagine few would object to raising the penalties associated with committing voter fraud in Florida. On the proposal for a sworn oath verifying finance disclosures for political candidates, that’s another no-brainer. What’s the point in having mandatory financial disclosures if there aren’t any meaningful penalties for violating them? On the ranked-choice ban. We’ve seen over the years that there are a lot of ways to botch voting tabulations. Previous elections supervisors in Broward and Palm Beach County seemingly found them all. In the grand scheme of awful election ideas, this one is way up there. The very idea of ranked choice introduces unnecessary levels of confusion with voters. While it’s not in place anywhere in Florida as of now, there have been rumblings of it coming to certain counties. Making sure it doesn’t happen makes a lot of sense to me. As for the ability for election supervisors to designate two more early voting locations?
As someone who has early voted in every election since 2006, it’s a real mixed bag out there. During most elections, it’s a smooth and easy process. During Presidential elections, it can take well over an hour. Florida’s population obviously continues to rapidly grow. It probably makes sense to have early voting reflect that reality. Speaking of elections supervisors – it shouldn’t be considered controversial for state law to mandate all elections supervisors do their job, to reconcile voter rolls annually.
Finally, the provision requiring non-citizens who aren’t eligible to vote, but who are issued IDs, to be specifically documented is important. According to the PILF findings, one of the most commonly referred forms of voter fraud – non-citizens voting in elections. Voter ID is a must to help ensure election integrity – that's already law in Florida, however the reality exists that there are those who have IDs and aren’t eligible to vote. It should also be non-controversial to account for those realities as well.
The legislation passed the state legislature on a party-line vote which continues to strike me as alarming. Election integrity should never be a partisan issue. Also, ironically perhaps, the most notable current investigation in Florida is of potential impropriety by Republican operatives tricking some Democrats into reregistering as Republicans. This legislation specifically addresses those types of issues with much harsher penalties for offenders. Nevertheless, when Governor DeSantis signs this into law, most aspects of it will be in place for this year’s midterm elections.