Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to stay in power, and using the Big Lie and the bogus conspiracy of rigged elections has prompted one of the most shameless of them, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to assure control by appointing a secretary of state who will absolutely toe the company line.
DeSantis appointed state Rep. Cord Byrd to office in May 2022. Byrd succeeds former Secretary of State Laurel Lee, who stepped down.
“Cord Byrd has been an ally of freedom and democracy in the Florida Legislature, and I am confident he will carry that mission forward as secretary of state,” DeSantis said in May. “I look forward to his successes ensuring Florida’s elections remain safe, secure, and well-administered.”
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According to Salon, Byrd has said he will guarantee that "Florida continues to have secure elections and that we protect the freedom of our citizens in the face of big-tech censorship and ever-growing cybersecurity threats." But Byrd has also staunchly denied that President Joe Biden beat former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
When he was appointed, Byrd said about Biden, "He was certified as the president. He is the president of the United States … There were irregularities in certain states. … I'm not the secretary of state of Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or Arizona. That's up to their voters. We in Florida had a successful election in 2020. And that's what I want to continue to have in 2022."
Byrd’s wife Esther is also deeply problematic. She was appointed by DeSantis to the State Board of Education.
After the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, Esther Byrd said the rioters were “peacefully protesting.” And on her Facebook page, she reportedly wrote: “ANTIFA and BLM can burn and loot buildings and violently attack police and citizens … But when Trump supporters peacefully protest, suddenly ‘Law and Order’ is all they can talk about! I can’t even listen to these idiots bellyaching about solving our differences without violence.”
According to Florida Politics, while the Capitol was under attack, Esther Byrd tweeted:
“In the coming civil wars (We the People vs the Radical Left and We the People cleaning up the Republican Party), team rosters are being filled,” mused Byrd. “Every elected official in DC will pick one. There are only 2 teams… With Us [or] Against Us.”
But it’s her husband who is much more worrisome. Byrd co-sponsored Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a ban on abortions after 15 weeks, anti-voter bills that passed in 2021 and 2022, an anti-trans athlete ban, and an anti-immigrant bill, as NPR reports.
"The way he made arguments and debates on the floor, it really made many of my Black colleagues and myself uncomfortable with some of the things that he said,” Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville told NPR about Byrd. "It seems as though the governor chose someone who he knew was going to do his bidding," Nixon said. "I think someone who may have already been a judge — or someone who had previously been a supervisor of elections — would have been great for this job, but not someone who is as uber-partisan as Cord Byrd is," Nixon added.
Per Salon, Jim Marchant, a Trump bootlicker who’s joyously claimed that elections in general are illegitimate, won the GOP nomination for secretary of state in Nevada. Kristina Karamo, another election-denier, won the Republican nomination for secretary of state in Michigan. Mark Finchem was endorsed by Trump to be Arizona’s next secretary of state; he was also at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and introduced a bill to decertify the 2020 presidential election.
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