Florida GOP denounced for passing bill to ‘intimidate’ voters

Civil rights advocates on Friday condemned the Republican-led Florida Legislature for passing another voter suppression bill that far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely GOP presidential candidate for 2024, is expected to sign into law.

The Florida House passed Senate Bill 4B by a margin of 77-33 on Friday, two days after state senators approved the bill in a 27-12 party-line vote. The legislation seeks to expand the authority of the Office of Statewide Prosecution (OSP) to pursue charges for alleged election-related crimes. The OSP reports to Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, a close ally of DeSantis.

A coalition of voting rights groups—including NAACP Florida, ACLU of Florida, Common Cause Florida, and the Brennan Center for Justice—submitted joint testimony opposing S.B. 4B on Thursday. In a joint statement issued after its passage on Friday, the coalition warned that the legislation “risks impacting people with past convictions who will continue to be arrested and prosecuted in the criminal legal system for honest mistakes about their voter eligibility.”

“This proposal is a solution in search of a problem,” the coalition said. “There is no legitimate need to waste taxpayer dollars and state resources by expanding the Office of Statewide Prosecution for these purposes. This bill is being heard and swiftly passed only because the governor desires to expand his prosecutorial authority over Floridians who are lawfully trying to exercise their right to vote.”

S.B. 4B comes as DeSantis faces rebuke for using Florida’s newly established Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated individuals who believed they were eligible to vote—thanks to Amendment 4, a voter-approved 2018 referendum re-enfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions—for alleged “voter fraud” last year.

Most of the people who were arrested for improperly casting ballots had been approved by the Florida Department of Elections, which mailed them voter registration cards prior to the 2020 election. Despite this, all of them have been slapped with felony charges carrying prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to $5,000. The arrests, unsurprisingly, have reportedly scared away many potential voters.

“While one of the cases has been settled, judges have in many cases dismissed charges and some local state attorneys have been reluctant to pursue charges,” Florida Politics reported Friday. “Democrats have questioned if the proposed legislation will allow the statewide prosecutor to take over cases that local state attorneys won’t try.”

Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-47) alluded to body cam footage showing that many of those arrested—and some of the police officers—were confused about the nature of the charges.

“We had folks in Orange County that, after that amendment passed, they called the Supervisor of Elections, they called the Division of Elections, and were told they could vote,” she told Florida Politics. “There’s a reason why these cases are being tossed out.”

According to the news outlet, many critics of S.B. 4B view it as “an intimidation tactic to discourage many former felons from registering regardless, even if they are now eligible to do so.”

Florida Rep. Yvonne Hinson (D-20) said that after “citizens served their time, they should be able to have their civil rights restored.” She called the bill “an intentional act by the Legislature to manipulate the judicial process to fit a political position.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org.