The Washington Post decided to speak with some of the people that Ron DeSantis is trying to use as an example of elector fraud. This included people like 53-year-old Leo Grant, who was surprised when three agents arrested him while he was on his way to fish. “I’ve been a good father, and I follow the law,” he thought. “I do good for the community. And here they come to my house and pick me up for voting?”
Grant had served time for a sexual offense conviction back in 1999, and when he registered to vote had not had any problem. Grant’s story seems to be the norm. Most of the people DeSantis’ goon squad arrested and charged were Black, and most of them (if not all) had gone through standard channels to register to vote. These are not people who stole someone else’s identity in order to vote. These are not people pretending to be deceased citizens—that’s what Republican voter fraudsters do, it seems. In many cases, the people DeSantis is preying on were given what they believed was a green light by the state.
“If the state is unable to determine that these people were not eligible to vote, how on earth are these individuals themselves supposed to know?” asked Daniel A. Smith, a University of Florida political science professor and expert on state and national election laws. “It’s really unconscionable. … They’re punching down and targeting the low-hanging fruit.”
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Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes told the Post that the clear hyperbole on the part of DeSantis is creating suffering in people who seem to have had no idea they were thwarting our democracy. They did everything right. “They have jobs. They have businesses. They have families. And now all the sudden they’re being put under arrest for something they thought was doing their civic duty.”
But that’s the GOP way. If Republicans like DeSantis truly cared about election integrity, they would spend the money and the resources on making sure the government worked to secure that integrity. Instead, after defunding and putting cronies into important positions in government, they punish the people who were naive enough to believe that the government knew what the laws were. Of course, this has the added effect of allowing craven politicians like DeSantis the chance to blame “big government” for not working for people, while also being the cause of “big government” not working for people.
DeSantis has spent his time in Florida trying to run for higher office. He has wasted millions of his constituents’ tax dollars fighting culture wars, attacking trans children, attacking teachers, attacking American history, attacking common sense public health policy. Gov. DeSantis is still favored to win in Florida, but he’s also an elephant in the China shop of humanity, and like the man he apes, is prone to sticking his whole inadequate mind into his mouth.
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