In August, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the state of Florida was arresting 20 people who knowingly registered and voted illegally in the 2020 election. He said these arrests were “just the first step” in his effort to curb alleged large-scale voter fraud. the state, despite the fact that there is no evidence that voter fraud is a major concern in the state.
Those trapped that day weren’t conspirators in a large-scale electoral fraud: Most of those arrested had previously been convicted of murder or sex crimes in Florida, which automatically makes them ineligible to vote there, even after serving their sentences, probation. and paid other court costs.
Last week the Tampa Bay Times appeared body camera images registered by the local police as they made a few arrests. It caused a stir. The videos showed arrests of detainees who reacted to the charges with genuine surprise and confusion. The police themselves also seem confused and even sympathetic at times.
The big question that the video itself and the negative response to it raises is: If these people weren’t allowed to vote in the first place, why were they held accountable when the state failed to carry out careful background checks?
“Why would you let me vote if I couldn’t vote?” asked Tony Patterson, one of the people arrested on video.
According to Lawrence Mower, the Tallahassee correspondent for the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald who first got his hands on the footage of the arrests, it’s because the laws around who can vote in Florida are extremely confusing and have been since 2018. . Mower spoke to cafemadrid’s Sean Rameswaram earlier this week for an episode of Explained today – cafemadrid’s daily news explainer podcast – about the arrests and DeSantis’ motivation to kickstart the program that led to them.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s a lot more in the full podcast, so download Explained today wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotifyand stitcher.
Sean Rameswaram
What was the thought process behind releasing the video of these arrests?
Lawrence Mower
We brought this out with the thought that this is different. You know, witnessing the arrest of these people for voting is not something you see every day. Look at someone like Romona Oliver, a 55-year-old woman, who spent 18 years in prison for second-degree murder. She has a job. She has remarried since leaving prison. She is arrested on her way to work. She looks like a grandmother.
In another case of Tony Patterson, a man who is a registered sex offender. He stops in front of his house and the police say you have a warrant for your arrest. And he says, “For what?” You can tell from the video that he can’t really believe it. There is another telling video, a man by the name of Nathan Har. He got a voter pass, even though he wasn’t allowed to vote. The state did an initial check and gave him permission and he voted in 2020. The agency that arrested him even tells him that his story sounds like a loophole.
Sean Rameswaram
You also write that the police seem to have sympathy for the people who are arrested.
Lawrence Mower
Yes, that’s pretty special. It’s not every day you hear a police officer giving advice on how to defend a sex offender while they’re arresting that person. So the local police may seem skeptical or almost sympathetic to the plight of these people here. It’s not the kind of typical perception you have here when you hear “murderers and sex 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 is it about the reactions in the videos that shock you?
Lawrence Mower
The reactions of these people challenge the laws they are accused of breaking. They are charged with willfully breaking the law, willfully voting when ineligible. And I mean, just watch the video. Does it seem like these people knew at the time that they were breaking the law? I think there’s probably a real question for a lot of people, maybe even a jury, whether these people, you know, appeared to have intentionally broken the law.
Sean Rameswaram
To understand what’s going on in these videos, you need to understand Florida’s Amendment 4. Can you remind us what that amendment did?
Lawrence Mower
It allowed anyone with a felony conviction to vote. If you didn’t have a sex offense on your criminal record, if you didn’t have a murder on your criminal record, and if you fulfilled all the terms of your sentence. You know, Amendment 4, when it was passed? [via ballot initiative in 2018], was considered the largest expansion of democracy in the United States since the civil rights movement. We are talking about 1.4 million people in Florida who are presumably given the right to vote back.
Sean Rameswaram
Governor DeSantis takes office in 2019. What is his relationship to Amendment 4?
Lawrence Mower
He was against the amendment, as were most of the top Republicans here. And DeSantis encouraged lawmakers to take a very hard line on the fines and fees. He is the one who really pushed the legislator to require people with a crime conviction to pay all fines and compensation and restitution to victims before they are allowed to vote.
So DeSantis is setting up a new office to investigate voter fraud, right?
Lawrence Mower
The Bureau of Election Crimes and Security was something that DeSantis requested from the legislature in 2021. This is a first of its kind office, and these were some of the concerns some in the legislature had when this office was established. They wondered: how will this office be used? Because this puts quite a bit of power in the hands of a politician.
Sean Rameswaram
Okay, and I imagine this office is how we arrive at these arrests?
Lawrence Mower
In August, DeSantis held a press conference to announce the first actions of the Office of Election Crimes and Security. He announces that 20 people are being arrested. It’s not a debate. They were not allowed to vote, but were nevertheless given a voter ID card approved by the Secretary of State and were not stopped from going to a polling station and casting a vote in 2020. first actions of this new office. You know these people are going to pay the price.
Sean Rameswaram
So what’s clear is that if you buy that there has been widespread electoral fraud in the 2020 election until now, arresting 20 people who appear to be confused about whether or not they have the right to vote isn’t really a bigger conspiracy. is to commit fraud in elections, right?
Lawrence Mower
No, that’s not it. You know, DeSantis has been under pressure from Florida conservatives since 2020 to audit Florida’s 2020 election, which President Trump handily won in Florida. It was a blowout by Florida standards. So it’s no secret to the political class that this was a response to pressure from the right to do something about voter fraud. And these 20 arrests here do not indicate any kind of joint fraud.
Sean Rameswaram
Right, so what do these arrests actually point to?
Lawrence Mower
It actually points to errors in DeSantis’ own office. You know, the fundamental question here is, why were these people allowed to register to vote in the first place? Why can’t the Secretary of State — again, this is DeSantis’ own office — why can’t they still tell you when you register to vote whether or not you’re eligible to vote?
Sean Rameswaram
What is DeSantis after that that will spoil the people who really want to see him in police elections this way – if you admit he doesn’t even seem to care that much?
Lawrence Mower
It’s no secret to anyone in Florida, let alone nationally, that DeSantis wants to run for president. And of course he is running for re-election this year. So this is an issue where he can be seen as vulnerable, and it’s something he has some control over. So he can create an election security force and make arrests, which makes headlines, making it look like he’s doing something.
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