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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announces the arrest of 20 people who illegally voted in the 2020 election. CBS News. The arrests came from the Office of Election Crimes and Security, a newly created office that was created to investigate voter fraud. The people arrested were all convicted felons found guilty of murder or rape. Most Florida felons can get their voting rights restored but those convicted of rape or murder cannot. They face five years in prison and a $5000 fine. DeSantis also said that the state would be investigating illegal aliens and other foreign nationals that may have voted in 2020 as well. Unlike many other states, Florida's 2020 election ran very smoothly.
My Comment:
I get the feeling that this kind of voter fraud happens all the time but isn't ever discovered because nobody asked the questions until now. Probably because if they did they would be finding prohibited felons voting all the time. In a close race it could obviously change the outcome of the election and given how close elections are these days it's a major concern.
The voting rights of felons differs between states. Most states are like Florida where most voting rights are restored after the time is served. Some states do not allow felons to vote at all while others even allow felons to vote from prison! That's states rights for you, but it's only really a problem if people are voting against the law.
You can argue the merits of giving felons their voting rights back or not. I wouldn't be totally opposed to it to certain non-violent criminals. There is something to be said about not punishing people forever if they have genuinely decided to reform. But the fact is that in most states these people are not allowed to vote when they are under supervision and there is no real process in place to keep these people from voting. I don't ever remember being asked if I was a felon when I registered to vote.
It's unclear how bad of a problem this is because in most states nobody is asking these kinds of questions. Voter fraud is rarely found because voter fraud is not really investigated in any meaningful way. If all 50 states had a unit like the one they have in Florida we would have a much better idea how bad this problem really is. My gut says that felons illegally voting alone probably wouldn't matter in all but the most close races but we seem to have an awful lot of those lately.
It's DeSantis' announcement that he is going after foreign nationals and criminal aliens voting that could be the gamebreaker. Many of those people are suspected to vote but in most states there is little to stop them from doing so. Given how many of them have stolen identities it would be quite a bit harder to detect than the felons as all you need to find felons is compare the voter roles to the criminal conviction records.
But if you can detect when these people are voting illegally and prevent them from doing so you will almost certainly change the results of elections. If we had efforts in place to prevent illegal aliens and foreign nationals in place in 2020, I am confident that Donald Trump would be in office right now and Joe Biden would be nothing but a bad memory.
I do have to say that I wonder if the Democrats will eventually care about the issue of illegals voting given their eroding support among Hispanics. It's obviously not fair to compare the voting preferences of legal Hispanic citizens and Hispanic criminal aliens, but given how many Hispanics don't seem to be on board with wokeness it might be something they could eventually worry about.
Keep in mind that this happened in Florida. Unlike many states, Florida usually has their elections in good shape. They actually learned their lessons from the 2000 election and reformed their processes effectively. Most states aren't anywhere near as good as Florida so I am guessing they have much worse problems.
This story also plays against the media lie that voter fraud simply doesn't happen and that you shouldn't ask any questions about it at all. Even in the CBS story they downplayed it and tried to cite the biased courts rejecting challenges, which isn't evidence of anything.
I have always thought there has been widespread voter fraud in US elections and for obvious reasons. Unlike most countries there are entire states where you don't even have to show an ID to register to vote. Europeans are often baffled by our election processes when they hear about the total lack of election security most states have. I just voted in my primary election last week and even though I had to sign and show my ID I don't think it would be hard at all to vote illegally.
I also admit that there is probably a lot of voter fraud on both sides. I know a few Republicans get arrested every cycle (and those news stories are always viral in the news) and I'm not entirely convinced that Stacy Abrams, for example, didn't win in 2018. I think it is more widespread on the Democrats side, due to their advantage in machine politics, organization and the fact that they control the cities. But it's an issue that happens on both sides and it's pretty inexplicable that the Democrats don't seem to think that it could ever be used against them.
Either way, I'm not confident in our elections nationally. If I lived in Florida I would feel somewhat better but I don't and I really have no idea if my votes are wiped out by people voting illegally. That's a real problem because much of the country feels that way and if you can't trust elections then, well, nothing good comes from it.
As for Ron DeSantis, I'm not sure what to think about him. I know that he is ambitious and I like almost all of his policies. But he isn't Donald Trump and I'm afraid that the left will try and use DeSantis as a tool to bring him down. At this moment I would be very pleased with either Trump or DeSantis as our next President but I do fear that the two will end up fighting eventually, which would be very damaging to the Republican Party.
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