Gov. RonDeSantis is defending voter fraud charges brought by his administration that have drawn increasing criticism, including from the Republican lawmaker who drafted legislation at the center of the debate.
DeSantis' crackdown came just days before last week's primary contests and focused on the state's largest Democratic-leaning counties. At least several of those accused had been told by county election officials that they were eligible to vote, while questions linger about whether state elections officials failed to meet its role in verifying voter eligibility.
Since then Brandes has tweeted that"felons who register without intent to commit voter fraud" should be "notified first and prosecuted last" and"the more that comes out on the arrests the more I believe the individuals involved had no knowledge or intent to violate the law." The governor added that:"Clearly this is a very, very easy provision of our law to know that somebody should not be registering or being able to do it if they have those very serious convictions."Under state voter registration procedures, a voter submits their registrations to local election officials, who then forward them to the state. State officials flag voters who are ineligible and notify local officials.
One of those bills established the new Office of Election Crimes and Security. Democrats opposed the legislation over concerns that the office will be politicized to target left-leaning voters. Critics accused the governor of pushing questionable fraud prosecutions to scare eligible voters from casting ballots.
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