The far Proper’s march to restrict voting to the utmost extent attainable continues apace.
As initially reported late Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used a talking occasion in West Palm Seaside to announce his intention to type an election police drive. DeSantis’s proposal goes far past using already established state legislation enforcement and dedicating a portion of their effort and time throughout an election season. No, in lately of finances cuts, DeSantis’s name entails creating a completely new legislation enforcement company with one sole focus.
From AOL.com:
Citing unspecified examples of election fraud, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday pledged to create a legislation enforcement company to research election crimes as a part of a brand new package deal of voting legal guidelines.
Talking at an occasion in West Palm Seaside, the Republican governor introduced a sequence of election legislation proposals for lawmakers to take up throughout subsequent yr’s legislative session, together with new restrictions on poll drop containers and strengthened penalties for poll harvesting.
Usually one expects proposals similar to these above as a response to new issues present in an present exercise e.g. “Joint drug activity forces.” However because the report states elsewhere, there’s broad consensus that Florida’s 2020 election was devoid of any important fraud, environment friendly, and fully correct. In fact, all the correct Republicans received Florida in 2020.
Given this “resolution” seeking an issue, DeSantis helpfully cited the urgent points he desires locked down:
“There’ll be individuals, for those who see somebody poll harvesting, you realize, what do you do? When you name into the election workplace, plenty of instances they don’t do something. If you realize that, there’s, you realize, in Florida, it’s Constitutionally mandated, solely residents are allowed to vote in Florida, and but you see examples of individuals, they’ll even test they’re not residents, and so they’ll nonetheless be given ballots,” he mentioned to applause.
To begin with, the USA Structure prohibits voting by non-citizens, DeSantis is disingenuously attempting to make Florida sound distinctive. However way more critical issues lurk behind DeSantis’s new proposal, not the least of which is that proper Republicans did win in Florida, now take into account what Georgia may do if this works.
Second, “poll harvesting”? DeSantis is probably going not involved about an aged man in a golf cart going up and down the streets of “The Villages” and taking the ballots to the precincts or putting them in drop containers. Such a pleasant man is just not poll harvesting, he’s merely being neighborly, serving to others out – some have bother getting out of the home and navigating the streets. In actuality, the person can be guaranteeing all the correct votes are collected. The 2 motives are usually not mutually unique, in any context. It’s simply simpler to police elsewhere.
Furthermore, DeSantis’s grimacing concern about non-citizens voting is the actual inform, the inform nobody actually wanted. First, unlawful immigrants don’t vote, interval. An unlawful immigrant would wade via a snake-filled Florida canal earlier than that immigrant would enter a spot run by authorities empowered officers after which give that very same authorities their title, tackle, and different contact info. That is exactly why there has by no means been a examine or investigation discovering greater than a handful of extraordinarily remoted circumstances of non-citizens voting.
However far more importantly, the one means by which such a police drive may cease a “non-citizen” from “strolling in and selecting up a poll” is by having that legislation enforcement agent standing within the room throughout the course of and that is what Ron DeSantis actually desires. DeSantis is aware of that there are POC in our neighborhood that don’t see the police as a drive to “defend and serve,” however have skilled “harassment and abuse.”
It’s exactly due to trendy policing patterns and courtroom penalties that the poor and POC are way more more likely to have an unpaid ticket, or missed courtroom date someplace lingering within the distant previous, and rightly worry that one thing about their “look” alone will function enough possible trigger to detain and search. Legislation enforcement already leans closely conservative. In a detailed race, one can nearly rely upon officers from such an company on the lookout for the “kind” they don’t need voting, which certainly motivates DeSantis’s dream.
That is trendy Jim Crow, no completely different than ballot taxes, literacy assessments, and the like. It’s an much more aggressive reply to outlawing “Souls to the Polls” practices, used nearly solely by Black People. Maybe most disturbingly, the sinister goal is fully clear, the rules are fully undemocratic, and Ron DeSantis’s supporters fully don’t care.
Jason Miciak is a political author, options author, creator, and lawyer. He’s initially from Canada however grew up within the Pacific Northwest as a twin Canadian-American citizen, which he grows more and more grateful for each day. He now enjoys life as a single dad, writing from the seashores of the Gulf Coast, getting recommendation from his beloved daughter and teammate. He’s very a lot the dreamy mystic that can’t add and loves canine greater than most individuals. He additionally likes learning cooking, theoretical physics, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. He likes pizza.
Please go to his Substack E-newsletter, get the primary month free: Much Ado About Everything: By Jason Miciak
