In August, Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced that the state of Florida was arresting 20 individuals who had knowingly registered and voted illegally within the 2020 elections. He mentioned these arrests have been “simply step one” in his try and crackdown on alleged wide-scale voter fraud within the state, even though there is no such thing as a proof to show voter fraud is a serious concern within the state.
These snared that day weren’t plotters of some large-scale election rigging scheme: The general public arrested had beforehand been convicted of homicide or felony intercourse offenses in Florida, which makes them mechanically ineligible to vote there even after they’ve accomplished their sentences, probations, and paid different court-related charges.
Final week the Tampa Bay Instances launched body-camera footage recorded by native police as they made a number of arrests. It induced an uproar. The movies confirmed arrests of arrestees reacting with real shock and confusion on the costs. The police themselves additionally appear confused and even sympathetic at instances.
The large query the video itself and the adverse response to it presents is: If these individuals weren’t allowed to vote within the first place, why have been they being held to account when the state didn’t do correct background checks?
“Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t capable of vote?” requested Tony Patterson, one of many individuals getting arrested on video.
Based on Lawrence Mower, the Tallahassee correspondent for the Tampa Bay Instances and the Miami Herald who first obtained the footage of the arrests, it’s as a result of the legal guidelines round who has eligibility to vote in Florida are extraordinarily complicated and have been since 2018. Mower spoke to Vox’s Sean Rameswaram earlier this week for an episode of In the present day, Defined — Vox’s every day information explainer podcast — in regards to the arrests, and DeSantis’s motivation for kick-starting this system that led to them.
Beneath is an excerpt of the dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s way more within the full podcast, so obtain In the present day, Defined wherever you get podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Sean Rameswaram
What was the thought course of behind releasing the video of those arrests?
Lawrence Mower
We put this on the market pondering that that is totally different. , witnessing these individuals get arrested for voting is simply not one thing you see on daily basis. You have a look at somebody like Romona Oliver, a 55-year-old lady, spent 18 years in jail for second-degree homicide. She’s obtained a job. She’s been remarried since leaving jail. She’s arrested on her option to work. She seems to be like a grandma.
In one other case of Tony Patterson, a man who’s a registered intercourse offender. He’s stopped exterior of his home and police inform him you’ve obtained a warrant on your arrest. And he says, “What for?” You may see from the video that he can’t actually imagine it. There’s one other telling video, a man by the identify of Nathan Har. He was given a voter ID card regardless that he was not allowed to vote. The state did an preliminary test and cleared him and he voted in 2020. The workplace arresting him even tells him that his story appears like a loophole.
Sean Rameswaram
You additionally write that police appear sympathetic towards the individuals getting arrested.
Lawrence Mower
Yeah, that’s fairly extraordinary. It’s not on daily basis that you simply hear a police officer lending recommendation on a intercourse offender’s protection whereas they’re arresting that individual. So native police appear possibly skeptical or nearly sympathetic to those individuals’s conditions right here. It’s not the type of typical notion you’ve gotten right here whenever you hear “murderers and intercourse offenders.”
[Editor’s note: You can hear clips of the reactions being described in the Today, Explained episode or watch the videos here on the Tampa Bay Times’s website.]
Sean Rameswaram
What’s it in regards to the reactions within the movies that causes shock?
Lawrence Mower
These individuals’s reactions problem the legal guidelines that they’re being accused of violating. They’re being accused of willfully violating the legislation, willfully voting after they have been ineligible. And I imply, simply have a look at the video. Does it appear to be these individuals knew that they have been violating the legislation on the time? I believe there’s most likely an actual query there for lots of people, even perhaps a jury, whether or not or not these individuals, you already know, appeared to have willfully violated the legislation.
Sean Rameswaram
To know what’s happening in these movies, it’s important to perceive Florida’s Modification 4. Are you able to remind us what that modification did?
Lawrence Mower
It allowed anybody with a felony conviction to vote. If you happen to didn’t have a felony intercourse offense in your file, when you didn’t have a homicide in your file, and when you had accomplished all phrases of your sentence. , Modification 4, when it handed [via ballot initiative in 2018], was thought of the best growth of democracy in the US because the civil rights motion. We’re speaking as much as 1.4 million individuals in Florida, presumably getting the proper to vote again.
Sean Rameswaram
Governor DeSantis comes into workplace in 2019. What’s his relationship to Modification 4?
Lawrence Mower
He was in opposition to the modification, like a lot of the high Republicans have been right here. And DeSantis inspired the legislature to attract a really laborious line on the fines and charges situation. He’s the one who actually pushed the legislature to require individuals with felony convictions to repay all fines and charges and restitution to victims earlier than being allowed to vote.
So DeSantis units up a brand new workplace to analyze voter fraud, proper?
Lawrence Mower
The Workplace of Election Crimes and Safety was one thing that DeSantis requested from the legislature in 2021. This can be a first-of-its-kind workplace, and these have been a few of the considerations that some within the legislature had when this workplace was created. They have been questioning — how is that this workplace going for use? As a result of that is placing fairly a little bit of energy right into a politician’s palms.
Sean Rameswaram
Okay, and I think about this workplace is how we get to those arrests?
Lawrence Mower
In August, DeSantis held a press convention to announce the primary actions by the Workplace of Election Crimes and Safety. He publicizes 20 individuals getting arrested. It’s no debate. They weren’t allowed to vote, however however they got voter ID playing cards cleared by the secretary of state and weren’t stopped from going right into a polling place and casting a poll in 2020. Nonetheless, DeSantis publicizes these arrests, touts that these have been the primary actions by this new workplace. that these individuals are going to pay the worth.
Sean Rameswaram
So what’s clear is that when you purchase that there was widespread election fraud within the 2020 election, to date, arresting 20 individuals who appear to have been confused about whether or not or not that they had the proper to vote isn’t actually getting at some bigger conspiracy to commit fraud in elections, proper?
Lawrence Mower
No, it’s not. , DeSantis since 2020 has been underneath stress from conservatives in Florida to do an audit of Florida’s 2020 election, which President Trump gained handily in Florida. It was a blowout by Florida requirements. So it’s type of no secret from the political class that this was a response to stress from the proper to do one thing about voter fraud. And these 20 arrests don’t level to any type of concerted fraud right here.
Sean Rameswaram
Proper, so what do these arrests truly level to?
Lawrence Mower
It type of factors to faults with DeSantis’s personal workplace, in reality. , the essential query right here is, why have been these individuals allowed to register to vote within the first place? Why can’t the secretary of state — once more, that is DeSantis’s personal workplace — why can’t they nonetheless inform you whenever you register to vote whether or not or not you’re eligible to vote?
Sean Rameswaram
What’s DeSantis after that he’ll indulge the individuals who actually need to see him police elections this fashion — whenever you admit that he doesn’t even appear to essentially care that a lot about it?
Lawrence Mower
It’s no secret to anybody in Florida, a lot much less nationally, that DeSantis desires to run for president. And, in fact, he’s working for reelection this yr. And so this is a matter during which he could also be perceived as weak, and it’s one thing that he has some management over. So he can create an election safety power and make arrests, which will get headlines, which makes it seem like he’s doing one thing.
