Under the law, DeSantis can hire 10 law enforcement officers dedicated to investigating election-related crimes. The measure also increases the penalty for submitting more than two vote-by-mail ballots from a misdemeanor to a felony, with a fine ranging from $1,000 to $50,000 for violating voter registration laws, CNN reports.
Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld
Democratic Rep. Tracie Davis told CBS News that DeSantis’ “so-called election reform legislation is a continued attack by the Republican Party to generate public distrust in the integrity of our elections,” adding that the bill is “unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer funds.”
According to a poll by the Associated Press taken in December 2021, only 475 cases of voter fraud were discovered related to the 2020 presidential election; 158.4 million Americans voted.
And perhaps DeSantis should be looking at his own party when it comes to voter fraud.
It hasn’t even been two weeks since we reported that Mark ‘Big Lie’ Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, was removed from voter rolls in North Carolina after it was discovered he was registered in both Virginia and North Carolina. Then yet another state popped up: South Carolina.
It’s widely assumed that DeSantis will run for reelection and could be a 2024 presidential candidate. In preparation for election season, the governor appears to be making it extremely difficult for Democrats to have a fair shot.
On Friday DeSantis presented a congressional map so gerrymandered that it was almost laughable, except that it wasn’t funny.
The Florida House voted 68-38 in favor of DeSantis’ map and sent it to the governor’s desk for his signature. The state Senate signed off on the map Wednesday; both voted along party lines.
Though the map will likely be challenged in court, it offers four more GOP-leaning districts, virtually erases Democrats’ gains in redistricting, and splits Florida's 10th Congressional District held by Rep. Val Demings, a Black Democrat who’s currently running for Senate.
If the map is upheld, it would all but end Rep. Al Lawson’s congressional role by slicing up a district that extends through North Florida and merges Black neighborhoods in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, The New York Times reports.
“It’s so blatantly partisan,” Matthew Isbell, a leading Florida-based Democratic data consultant, told NBC News. “The only way you can create a 20-and-8 map ... was to basically say, ‘Screw Black representation.’”
