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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed the Office of Election Crimes and Security, an election police force of sorts, to investigate election fraud. The state would be the first in the country to implement a police force to investigate voting irregularities.
“To ensure that elections are conducted in accordance with the rule of law, I propose an election integrity unit whose sole focus will be the enforcement of Florida’s election laws,” he said during his State of the State address. “This will facilitate the faithful enforcement of election laws and will provide Floridians with the confidence that their vote will matter.”
It would give the executive branch unprecedented power to investigate election fraud. This amount of power concerns voter rights advocates, local election officials, and Democrats.
According to the proposed legislation, the unit would have the power to take over other law enforcement agencies’ investigations. That’s in addition to being able to look into allegations of voter fraud on its own.
“The proposed Office of Election Crimes and Security is intended to investigate possible violations of election law and deter potential violations,” said DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw.
If approved, the office will employ 52 people, including 20 sworn police officers, CNN reports. DeSantis is asking for $5.7 million to fund the task force.
However, experts say the cost needed to fund the new office is unnecessary due to the low amounts of voter fraud. Not to mention the possible impact on voters.
“There’s a reason that there’s no office of this size with this kind of unlimited investigative authority in any other state in the country, and it’s because election crimes and voter fraud are just not a problem of that magnitude,” said voting rights lawyer Jonathan Diaz to the Washington Post.
“My number one concern is that this is going to be used as a tool to harass or intimidate civic-engagement organizations and voters,” Diaz added.
Florida’s congressional Democrats have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland expressing their worries about the plan and asking the Justice Department to investigate “a disturbing rise in partisan efforts at voter suppression” in the state.
“Harmful proposals to create new partisan bodies to oversee our voting process are exactly the kind of action that demand oversight as we work to ensure that our voting process is unquestionably trustworthy,” they wrote.
