Election integrity is a top concern for many Republicans, but despite their frustration, few Republicans have taken any significant action. Florida stands out: Instead of relying on phony advertising, press conferences and memes, Governor Ron DeSantis has established an election integrity unit within the state's law enforcement agencies and has aggressively pursued election integrity. Criminal fraudNow he is taking his efforts to clean up the election to a new level.
Collecting petitions for citizen-led ballot initiatives is a tedious process that requires significant time, funding, and organization to gather enough valid signatures in a short period of time. The left undoubtedly has the resources to carry out these projects, but can we really trust that they have gathered enough signatures to successfully pass all of their priorities on the November ballot in multiple states? Or is something more suspicious going on?
In many local elections, the outcome is often decided by a small number of votes, and foreigners should not be allowed to influence the outcome.
In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has placed a premium on election integrity, state officials have begun scrutinizing the signature-gathering campaign for the abortion amendment amid widespread allegations of fraud. As expected, the media is blaming the fraud while ignoring key evidence.
Last week, the Tampa Bay Times Accused Governor DeSantis was accused of “political interference” for investigating 36,000 signatures collected for Amendment 4 in Hillsborough, Orange, Palm Beach and Osceola counties. They argued that the Governor was using his power to threaten political opponents with criminal charges simply because they oppose Amendment 4. This Most Media Coverage They constructed a story about “police questioning voters about signing abortion rights ballot petitions,” implying that police are randomly targeting people based on their opinions.
The dead are back and signing petitions!
While Governor DeSantis strongly opposes the unlimited abortion provisions outlined in the Fourth Amendment, the Florida State Department's decision to refer the criminal case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement highlights serious concerns about fraud, which is only being investigated if there is evidence of fraud.
The Florida Department of State has referred the Florida State Police to a criminal investigation into alleged signature fraud in Hillsborough, Palm Beach, Alachua, Orange and Osceola counties. letter The Deputy Secretary of State reported to FDLE's Special Election Integrity Unit that the Palm Beach County Board of Elections had determined that dozens of paid petition circulators were suspected of engaging in fraud. The Palm Beach Board of Elections had obtained signed complaints from individuals who falsely represented themselves as having signed petitions circulated by paid workers for the Soros-funded organization Florida Defending Freedom, when they had not done so.
In some cases, the paid people distributing the petitions (whose names are redacted in the documents) allegedly signed them themselves. Additionally, some of the signatures were from people who were already deceased when the petitions were distributed. The letter suggests that these cases are likely just the tip of the iceberg in one county, even though the organization under investigation operated across the state.
The 35 people surveyed submitted a total of 37,000 signatures, of which 23,018 were verified. The extent of the fraud and its potential impact on the amendment's repeal is unknown. However, significant evidence already exists that individuals knowingly committed election fraud, an issue that both sides in the amendment's petition should oppose. The fraud is so widespread that Osceola County Board of Elections officials have Her own name The petition was made without her consent.
Given this evidence, it is foolish to assume that all successful petition drives are legitimate. Earlier this year in Arkansas, a liberal group submitted 101,525 signatures in an attempt to put a state constitutional right to abortion on the November ballot. The Secretary of State struck down the effort, removing more than 14,000 signatures for failing to meet state law requirements. The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the state's decision. Last month's ruling.
In Florida, petition distributors submitted about 100,000 more signatures than were required, so any degree of fraud is unlikely to change the outcome, but as Governor DeSantis said last week, “The State of Florida has zero tolerance for fraud of any kind related to our elections.”
Why not follow Florida's example?
Despite widespread discontent among Republicans about election fraud, most Republican governors have not acted as aggressively as DeSantis to prevent and combat illegal voting and campaigning. Earlier this week, the DeSantis administration letter Requested information from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services regarding suspected foreign nationals currently registered to vote in Florida.
The Florida Department of State automatically flags people who self-identify as non-citizens on their driver's license applications to ensure they are not registered to vote. However, to make a final determination of non-citizenship, they need access to federal databases. Florida has flagged seven people who were registered to vote but who reported non-citizens on their driver's licenses. Without the federal government's cooperation, Florida cannot conclusively remove them from voter rolls without disenfranchising citizens.
This letter should be sent to USCIS. Legal obligation “No government agency or official shall be restricted in any way from sending to or receiving from the Immigration and Naturalization Service any information regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any individual, whether lawful or unlawful.” Investigators in Florida can access the SAVE database if they have the visa ID numbers of the individuals in question. Recently, they used this access to remove 144 non-citizens from the voter rolls. But they are unable to contact seven individuals because they have no information about their visa ID numbers.
In a letter, Florida Deputy Secretary of State Brad McVay made clear that the federal government has not made this information readily available or created a seamless system to do so, as proposed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) in HR 8281.
What's shocking is that no other states have attempted to make a final decision, which could easily be made based on the records of eligible drivers in the state. Every Republican-run state needs to send out similar requests for information and step up the pressure.
The fact that hundreds of thousands of foreigners are not yet registered to vote is no excuse to ignore those who are. A small number of votes often decide many local elections, and foreigners should not be able to influence the outcome.
We know why the federal government would resist efforts to block foreigners from voting. It's unclear why other Republicans would not join the Florida governor in taking an aggressive stance to keep foreigners off the voter rolls.
