Florida bill aims to overhaul state election laws — including proposal for election police force

By Kelly Mena, CNN

Florida lawmakers are considering new legislation aimed at changing election laws in Florida including creating an election police force — a proposal sought by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Travis Hutson and formally introduced Tuesday, comes amid a push by Republicans nationwide to make it harder to vote amid continued fallout from the 2020 election.

“Confidence in the integrity of our elections is essential to maintaining a democratic form of government,” said Hutson when filing his legislation, according to the Herald Tribune.

The wide-ranging proposal goes further than SB 90, the legislation passed and signed into law by DeSantis last May which originally instituted many of the mail-in voting restrictions currently in place.

The bill is currently being considered in the Florida Senate Committee on Elections and Ethics.

The new bill would increase voter identification requirements for voting by mail, meaning voters would need to provide either the last four digits of their driver’s license or their Social Security number on submitted ballots. Voters already have to include this information on the application.

The measure would also ban ranked-choice voting for local elections and require elections officials to update voter rolls every year. Additionally, the bill increases misdemeanor violations to a felony for collecting more than one vote-by-mail ballot.

One section of the bill that has raised concern is the increased cap on fines for certain violations by third-party registration organizations from $1,000 to $50,000. Critics worry the higher cap could significantly impact the smaller local groups who have limited budgets.

“Which we think will absolutely will stop mom-and-pop organizations and small churches and all sorts of community organizations regardless of their politically leanings because it’s just too much of a burden to have them take that on if someone inadvertently makes a mistake that their little community organization could have to face a fine of up to $50,000,” Cecile Scoon, the president of League of Women Voters of Florida, said at a meeting on the proposed legislation on Tuesday.

Creating Office of Election Crimes and Security

Among the bill’s provisions is the creation of the Office of Election Crimes and Security under the Florida Department of State. The office would also be able to initiate independent inquiries and conduct preliminary investigations “into allegations of election law violations or election irregularities in this state.”

The office would, according to the bill, employ election investigators, who would not be sworn officers of the law. Additionally, the office would be required to file a yearly report to the governor and state legislature with detailed information on the number of complaints that were received, independent investigations initiated and complaints referred to another agency for further investigation or prosecution.

The election police force proposal was first proposed by DeSantis last month and is already alarming voting rights advocates, who say it’s unprecedented at the state level.

CNN has reached out to DeSantis for comment on the bill.

The Republican has previously said that the new office would “ensure that elections are conducted in accordance with the rule of law” and “provide Floridians with the confidence that their vote will matter.”

Democrats on the committee have questioned the reasoning behind the election police force, with state Sen. Randolph Bracy denouncing the proposal.

“Aside from making it harder to vote, it [SB 524] sets up an election police force that would hunt down supposed election fraud. Dispatching law enforcement to enforce the state’s heavy-handed measures smacks more of tyranny than a democracy,” the Democrat said in statement Tuesday.

State Sen. Annette Taddeo, the vice chair of the committee and a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, brought up concerns the force could potentially be used against political opponents.

“What safeguards are there from preventing a sitting Governor or Cabinet from abusing their position to use these new government police and investigation units to go after political opponents,” Taddeo said in a statement to CNN.

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