Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on Monday the bill approving the creation of a new stand-alone election police force designed to crack down on voter fraud and other election crimes.
Even though former President Donald Trump had little trouble winning Florida, the governor of the nation’s third-largest state came under pressure from some Republicans to do a full-scale audit of the 2020 election which resulted in the novelties.
Signing the bill during an event at a sports bar north of the Tampa Bay area, DeSantis underscored that there’s no other place in the US where one should have more confidence that his vote counts than in the state of Florida.
Embracing a top priority of Republicans after Trump’s claims that his reelection was stolen, the voting legislation has become a focus this year for DeSantis, who is running for reelection and considered a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate.
In a speech where he referenced unspecified cases of voter fraud, he’s been pushing the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature to create the policing unit, setting aside over $2.6 million and 25 positions for two agencies the new law will create: the Office of Election Crimes and Security in the Department of State and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Branding it ‘unneeded’, Democrats opposed the creation of the new election police stressing that it has been developed to solve a problem that does not exist, but that’s an obvious toning down of the rhetoric after the first version of the measure was called a recipe for disaster.
The first draft of the bill, which was now watered down, would have imposed additional identification requirements on voters for mail-in ballots starting in the 2024 elections and the use of an extra envelope.
Although the local elections supervisors pointed out this would lead to voter confusion, Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson also warned that this bullying tactic, as she called it, will put up additional barriers to voting and target and intimidate communities of color.
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