(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Democrats and other leftist vote-fraud enablers lashed out in a panic when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state’s recently-formed Office of Election Crimes and Security had arrested and charged 20 people as part of a 2020 election integrity investigation.
“It’s not just going to be 20 arrests,” DeSantis said during a Thursday press conference in Broward County, the state’s biggest Democrat stronghold. “This is just the opening salvo of an office that was just set up on July 1.”
The 20 charged Thursday had voted illegally in the 2020 election after they had been convicted of murder or a sexual offense felony, reported the Tallahassee Democrat. Those cases were excluded from a constitutional amendment the state had passed restoring felons voting rights after they served their sentences and paid all fines, fees and restitution.
“They did not go through a process, they did not get their rights restored, and yet they went ahead and voted anyway,” DeSantis said.
Democrats charged DeSantis of “voter intimidation” for not letting felons and illegal aliens vote, neither of which is allowed under the state’s constitution.
“Ron DeSantis went to Broward County today for one reason and one reason only — to intimidate voters and suppress turnout in the most Democratic counties in Florida,” squawked Nikki Fried, who is running in the state’s Democrat primary for governor.
In addition to murderers and sex felons voting illegally in 2020, others are suspected of varying misdeeds to cast fraudulent votes.
“We have people who have voted in two different jurisdictions, and I imagine you’re going to see prosecutions on that,” DeSantis said. “We also have folks who are voting who are illegal aliens.”
REPORT: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that the election crimes and security office, a department started by the Governor to combat voter fraud and irregularities has discovered that illegal aliens have been voting in Floridas elections. pic.twitter.com/v8ji8f8EYc
— Anthony Cabassa (@AnthonyCabassa_) August 18, 2022
Seeming to mock the arrest of only 20 charged vote fraudsters, a reporter asked DeSantis why the state’s elections security initiative was even necessary.
“Because people weren’t getting prosecuted,” DeSantis shot back to cheers from law enforcement officers at the press conference.
“This is not the sum total of 2020,” DeSantis said, adding that more prosecutions were coming.
DeSantis breathes fire on a reporter who got snippy after it was announced that the state of Florida is prosecuting 20 individuals for voter fraud. pic.twitter.com/Uj0iu3QioM
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 18, 2022
At the same time, DeSantis said he thought Florida did a decent job handling the 2020 tilt. But he expressed serious doubt about other states.
DeSantis has never outright said he believes former President Donald Trump’s claims of huge 2020 vote fraud that cost Republicans the presidency, but he came very close Thursday.
“I said that the morning after the [2020] election, everyone knows the results in Florida, but no one knows the results in about a dozen states,” DeSantis said. “And we’re all waiting, and there’s ballot dumps and all this stuff.”
“That’s not the way to conduct an election,” DeSantis said.
In that light, DeSantis said investigations into 2020 vote fraud remain ongoing, with more prosecutions coming, and that officials in all 67 Florida counties have been instructed to preserve all 2020 elections records, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
“They need to make sure to preserve all the documentation until all these investigations are complete,” DeSantis said.
The arrests made Thursday were charged with third-degree felonies and face up to five years in prison.
Florida Elections Security Police Chief Peter Antonacci reiterated the certainty that more vote fraud arrests and prosecutions were in the pipeline.
“You’ll see more of these actions, and you’ll see more of these actions until the people who are behind it quit promoting it and the people that want to take risks know that there is a downside risk to voting when you’re not eligible to vote,” Antonacci said.
