How do Florida’s Election Police Work?

Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the United States, but that did not stop the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis, also a Republican, from establishing one of the first state agencies in the country solely dedicated to election crimes and voter fraud.

Earlier this year, the state gave the office of election crimes and security a $1.1 million budget, 15 employees and the authority to assist with complaints, initiate inquiries or conduct preliminary investigations into allegations of election law violations or irregularities. The office, housed within the Department of State, also oversees a voter fraud hotline. Critics say it duplicates work previously handled by the secretary of state, Department of Law Enforcement and attorney general.

In August, Mr. DeSantis announced that about 20 people — out of the more than 11 million who voted — had been charged with casting illegal ballots in the 2020 election. They were all felons convicted of murder or sex offenses who were barred by law from casting ballots.

But the violations appeared inadvertent, with police body camera footage showing the people puzzled when officers showed up to arrest some of them. In Florida, a conviction of voter fraud requires proof of intent. Already, a judge in Miami has dropped the charges against one of the 20.

Some of the people charged have said that they registered to vote only after being wrongly assured that they could do so under a constitutional amendment that restored voting rights to many felons in 2018. However, people convicted of murder or felony sex offenses were excluded.

Shortly after the arrests, the state changed forms to place the burden on people on probation to be “solely responsible for determining if you are legally able to register to vote,” The Tampa Bay Times reported.