DeSantis' election police charged 20 with voter fraud. Advocates say there's more to the story. They blamed what they describe as a confusing process that makes it difficult for either the suspects or election officials to tell whether they’re eligible to vote.
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Advocates claim those arrested did not know they were breaking the law — and that in many cases government officials had sent them voter registration materials. Many have now urged those arrested to fight the charges. They have also raised questions about whether the new police force is the best way to fix a broken system and decried the lack of a central database that could help officials avoid superfluous criminal charges.
“It’s clear that nobody notified them" that they were ineligible to vote. "They sent them voter registration cards, that’s the exact opposite of intent to break the law, they essentially cleared them,” said Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes, the architect of a separate, 2019 law that made it more difficult for ex-felons to vote, in an interview.
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The spokesman, Mark Ard, described a convoluted and often time-consuming process by which various state agencies check with one another in determining voter eligibility for felons and suggested that the individuals broke the law when they simply returned registration materials, even though the materials in many cases were sent to the individuals by election officials.
