The little Nazi state of Flor-i-daaaaaaaaaa......

DeSantis gets his election police. Now what?

By GARY FINEOUT

Get that resume ready — Well, Secretary of State Laurel Lee can officially hang up the "help wanted" sign.

Does that come with a badge? — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a bill into law creating a new election police — officially called the “Office of Election Crimes and Security" — that will be responsible for looking into voter fraud accusations and other violations of election law. DeSantis signed the bill at a sports bar called “Rookies” in Pasco County amid a receptive crowd and lots of fellow Republicans. The budget he will sign (let’s assume sometime in late May) includes enough money ($2.6 million) to pay for 25 positions with the new effort.

Some context — DeSantis proposed this new election crimes unit at a time when he — as well as Lee — were coming under pressure from corners of the Republican Party in the state who wanted the same kind of full-blown “forensic” audit that had occurred in Arizona in response to the false stolen-election claims coming from former President Donald Trump. Lee and DeSantis said such an audit wasn’t needed, but Lee herself became the target of threats. (Her office has declined to go into much detail about this but has acknowledged them.)

Tweaked — The governor did not get exactly what he wanted from the Legislature. In the end, the GOP-controlled Legislature declined to place sworn law enforcement investigators directly under Lee’s control and instead put ten of the new positions in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. (Which is about to get new management… an ambitious former U.S. attorney???) The governor gets to select the head of FDLE, but the choice also requires approval from two of the three members of the Florida Cabinet.

Not on board — That hasn’t assuaged Democrats who debated in opposition to this year’s election bill and remain skeptical about the need for the new election unit. They're also fearful it will be used to target political opponents of the governor. Parts of the new law are not going to be enforced by the state due to a recent ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker. But it does increase the criminal penalties for some election law violations, including “ballot harvesting” or the collection of more than two mail-in ballots by non-family members. “No Floridian should fear reprisal from an unaccountable agency with a nebulous mission simply because they wanted to register their fellow citizens to vote or help a neighbor turn in their mail ballot,” said Rep. Susan Valdes, a Tampa Democrat.

Background — Florida did not have any reports of widespread fraud in the last election, although there are now investigations in several counties about whether several dozen people with felony convictions were allowed to register and vote in 2020. (Some of this appears connected to the bumpy way that state and local election officials tried to implement Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to some felons, but not all of them.) Supervisors have also reported lots of problems with petitions submitted late last year in connection to a proposed gambling citizen initiative.

Deadlines — One key question is whether this new office will have much of a role in this year’s election. The funding doesn’t kick in until July, which means the department won’t have a lot of time to hire people and get the office functioning. But maybe this office is more about the next election — when a Floridian might be running for president.