‘How did I commit fraud?’ Ex-felon voters in Florida confused by arrests

[ZiprHead]

MSN

MIAMI — When Romona Oliver registered to vote in early 2020 at the Hillsborough Tax Collector’s office, she was asked if she had a felony conviction. She said yes.

The women helping her with the form submitted it, Oliver said. She said she was never asked specifically if her right to vote had been restored.

Oliver, a Tampa resident, had recently been released from a women’s prison in Florida after serving a 20-year sentence for second-degree murder.

In the last few months of her time in prison, Oliver said she’d read about Amendment 4, a constitutional amendment approved by about 65% of Floridians in 2018, which restored the voting rights of most felons who had completed all terms of their sentence.

No one told her she didn’t qualify under Amendment 4; the law doesn’t apply to those with sex offenses or murder charges. She registered as a Democrat and got her voter card in the mail.

In the 2020 presidential election, she voted. It was the first time Oliver, 55, ever did.

On Thursday morning, Oliver was arrested on a charge of voting as an unqualified elector and false affirmation. That afternoon, Gov. Ron DeSantis touted the arrests of 20 people, Oliver included, who had voted despite having a felony conviction for murder or a sex offense. Those arrested spanned five different counties: Hillsborough, Orange, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade.

“That is against the law and now they’re going to pay the price for it, so they will be charged,” DeSantis said.

Five of those arrested Thursday on voter fraud charges told the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times they believed they were able to vote and had faced no issue registering. They said they would not have voted had they known their previous convictions made them ineligible.

Amendment 4 supporters argue that Thursday’s arrests are another sign that the current system for restoring votes for nonviolent felons is broken.

Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said the felons’ stories reinforce a need for a statewide database that shows election officials whether a person registering to vote is eligible.

“We’ve been banging this drum for years,” Volz said. “If you can’t trust the government to tell you whether you’re eligible in the front end, how can you prosecute somebody in the back end?”

The rollout of Amendment 4 in Florida was marred by confusion and legal wrangling after DeSantis pushed state lawmakers to pass a bill that required felons to pay off all fines and fees and restitution before being able to vote, even though Florida has no central database to track court fees. A judge referred to it as an “administrative nightmare.”

Voter intimidation at it's finest. Yay!

 

[Patooka]

I'm really not a fan of this. I mean its not fucking likely any politician is going to win by actively courting the murderer demographic, so the only intent of this sort of thing is to strike a whole bunch of names off the ballot rolls.

 

[laughing dog]

It seems to me that it ought to be up to any state gov't to verify the eligibility of a person to vote before a ballot is cast. If that cannot occur in time for the election, the ballot should be provisional. Frankly, it seems to me that the state of Florida is guilty of gross negligence or entrapment.

 

[Ruth Harris]

This is just plain wrong. She was perfectly honest about a felony conviction when she was asked.

My personal opinion is that no one should lose their voting rights unless they are convicted of actual intentional voting fraud (not cases like this) or treason/sedition. There are no other crimes that should have any impact on a person's voting birthright.

Ruth

 

[TomC]

It seems to me that it ought to be up to any state gov't to verify the eligibility of a person to vote before a ballot is cast.

Exactly!
It's the Hillsborough County government that committed the fraud, tiny as it is.

Did DeSantis go after that guy who encouraged Floridians to rent a house in Georgia so they could vote?
Tom

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

MSN

MIAMI — When Romona Oliver registered to vote in early 2020 at the Hillsborough Tax Collector’s office, she was asked if she had a felony conviction. She said yes.

The women helping her with the form submitted it, Oliver said. She said she was never asked specifically if her right to vote had been restored.

Oliver, a Tampa resident, had recently been released from a women’s prison in Florida after serving a 20-year sentence for second-degree murder.

In the last few months of her time in prison, Oliver said she’d read about Amendment 4, a constitutional amendment approved by about 65% of Floridians in 2018, which restored the voting rights of most felons who had completed all terms of their sentence.

No one told her she didn’t qualify under Amendment 4; the law doesn’t apply to those with sex offenses or murder charges. She registered as a Democrat and got her voter card in the mail.

In the 2020 presidential election, she voted. It was the first time Oliver, 55, ever did.

On Thursday morning, Oliver was arrested on a charge of voting as an unqualified elector and false affirmation. That afternoon, Gov. Ron DeSantis touted the arrests of 20 people, Oliver included, who had voted despite having a felony conviction for murder or a sex offense. Those arrested spanned five different counties: Hillsborough, Orange, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade.

“That is against the law and now they’re going to pay the price for it, so they will be charged,” DeSantis said.

Five of those arrested Thursday on voter fraud charges told the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times they believed they were able to vote and had faced no issue registering. They said they would not have voted had they known their previous convictions made them ineligible.

Amendment 4 supporters argue that Thursday’s arrests are another sign that the current system for restoring votes for nonviolent felons is broken.

Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said the felons’ stories reinforce a need for a statewide database that shows election officials whether a person registering to vote is eligible.

“We’ve been banging this drum for years,” Volz said. “If you can’t trust the government to tell you whether you’re eligible in the front end, how can you prosecute somebody in the back end?”

The rollout of Amendment 4 in Florida was marred by confusion and legal wrangling after DeSantis pushed state lawmakers to pass a bill that required felons to pay off all fines and fees and restitution before being able to vote, even though Florida has no central database to track court fees. A judge referred to it as an “administrative nightmare.”

Voter intimidation at it's finest. Yay!

Republicans want to prosecute all of us in the back end.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is just plain wrong. She was perfectly honest about a felony conviction when she was asked.

This. Detrimental reliance on government officials should be a defense to basically any criminal charge.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Voter intimidation at it's finest. Yay!

Republicans want to prosecute all of us in the back end.

I think it's more about trying to prove there is massive voter fraud.

 

[Patooka]

Voter intimidation at it's finest. Yay!

Republicans want to prosecute all of us in the back end.

I think it's more about trying to prove there is massive voter fraud.

Dan Patrick offered $1million as a bounty for voter fraud in the 2020 election.

He had to pay to a Democrat.

EDIT: sorry here is my receipts:

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pays out $25,000 to Democrat who reported Republican voter fraud

A week after the 2020 election, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced that he was offering up to $1 million -- paid from his campaign account -- "to incentivize, encourage and reward people to come forward and report voter fraud."

edition.cnn.com

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Voter intimidation at it's finest. Yay!

Republicans want to prosecute all of us in the back end.

I think it's more about trying to prove there is massive voter fraud.

No, it's about making MAGAdiots THINK there's massive voter fraud, even though EVERY investigation shows there isn't.

 

[ZiprHead]

Speaking of Texas...

Former Texas mayor acquitted of illegal voting years after high-profile arrest by state’s election fraud unit

A Hidalgo County jury on Thursday acquitted former Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina of several voter fraud charges stemming from the 2017 election that brought him to power, according to local reports.Local news outlets reported Molina was acquitted on a 12-count indictment that included one count...

www.rawstory.com

A Hidalgo County jury on Thursday acquitted former Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina of several voter fraud charges stemming from the 2017 election that brought him to power, according to local reports.

Local news outlets reported Molina was acquitted on a 12-count indictment that included one count of engaging in organized voter fraud and 11 counts of illegal voting. His high-profile arrest by the state’s election fraud unit in 2019 was announced by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as part of what he described as “an organized illegal voting scheme” in the November 2017 municipal election.

The case was prosecuted by the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to a 2019 news release from the attorney general’s office, Molina was accused of directing voters to change their addresses to places where they did not live — including an apartment complex owned by Molina — so they could vote for him. Molina won the election by 1,240 votes, unseating then-incumbent Mayor Richard Garcia in the South Texas town.

 

[blastula]

Defendants targeted in DeSantis’ voter fraud crackdown were told they could vote

DeSantis’ office has ignored questions about local elections office sending voting cards to ex-felons before their arrests last week.

www.politico.com

The defendants told authorities they had no intention of committing voter fraud, according to affidavits, and in some cases were baffled by their arrests because counties had sent them voter registration cards and approved them to vote.

The defendants were vilified by the governor during a high profile press conference last week, where DeSantis announced the arrest of 20 people — convicted murderers and sex offenders — who allegedly cast votes in the 2020 election when they weren’t eligible to. The defendants, because of their convictions, weren’t permitted to vote.

Attorney Larry S. Davis, who is representing one of the men arrested in Miami-Dade for free, said his client was arrested at 6 a.m. when a SWAT team banged on his door.

“He was in his underwear, and they would not let him get clothed before taking him to jail,” Davis said. “There were people in his backyard who were armed, and they used a helicopter. It disrupted the entire neighborhood very early in the morning.”

There have been three arrests made in The Villages, a Republican stronghold in central Florida, related to people admitting they voted twice in the 2020 election. DeSantis did not hold events highlighting those arrested, each of whom entered pretrial diversion programs and avoided jail time.

“This is just the first step. There are many more in the pipeline” DeSantis said during last week’s press conference. “We are not just going to turn a blind eye to this. The days of that happening in Florida are over.”

Shitstain Desantis bravely going after the real criminals.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ron DeSantis’ First Voter Fraud Bust Is Quickly Imploding

The governor’s administration greenlighted the defendants’ voter registration. Now it has arrested them for voting.

slate.com

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a spectacle out of the round of arrests made by his election police force earlier this month, jailing 20 people on charges of voter fraud and promising more prosecutions to come. At least one target was dragged to jail in his underwear by a SWAT team at 6 a.m. But it turns out that the individuals ensnared in DeSantis’ dragnet had no idea that they could not lawfully vote. The governor’s own appointees flubbed their legal duty to stop them from registering. And because of their sloppy errors, all 20 defendants may well be acquitted of crimes they did not intend to commit.

DeSantis’ misadventure traces back to Amendment 4, the ballot initiative that was supposed to restore voting rights to most people who had completed sentences for felony convictions. (Those convicted of murder and sex offenses were excluded.) Floridians overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment in 2018. Yet DeSantis and his fellow Republicans promptly sabotaged the amendment by enacting an unnavigable, incomprehensible system for individuals who wished to regain their right to vote. The state refused to establish a coherent process for people convicted of felonies to learn they are eligible to cast a ballot. Many Floridians with disqualifying convictions, including the defendants arrested this month, are therefore unaware that amendment 4 does not apply to them.

Here’s how the process works. When the county supervisor of elections receives a registration application, they forward it to the state. The Division of Elections, part of the Department of State, then determines whether the applicant is “potentially ineligible based on a felony conviction without civil rights restored.” If the agency finds evidence of ineligibility, it informs the county supervisor, who then tells the applicant why his registration was denied. If the applicant confirms the allegation, he’s removed from the voter registration system. If the applicant denies the allegations, he can demand a hearing to prove that he is eligible.

This process is mandated in a Florida statute. As Dixon pointed out, it is also enshrined in a 2009 rule issued by the Florida Department of State. In case that were not enough, the director of elections testified under oath in 2020 that the state bears responsibility for checking applicants’ felon status. As the Guardian’s Sam Levine noted on Saturday, her testimony affirmed that applicants are checked against a law enforcement database within 24 hours. (Local election officials do not even have access to that data.) Three sitting county election supervisors have told Dixon that this process is, indeed, the current system for screening potential felony convictions.

It’s easy to see why DeSantis is eager to direct culpability away from state governments. The governor appoints the head of both the Division of Elections and the Department of State. His own administration greenlighted the defendants’ voter registration applications, and now it has arrested them for voting. That doesn’t look like election security. It looks like entrapment.

But even if DeSantis were correct, shifting responsibility to county supervisors would not absolve his appointees. Three people charged with voter fraud registered with the Broward County supervisor of elections—which, according to the governor, should have uncovered their disqualifying convictions and denied their applications. Who served as Broward County supervisor of elections when these individuals registered? Peter Antonacci, whom DeSantis appointed to lead the election police. The man in charge of prosecuting voter fraud previously facilitated fraud among the very individuals he’s now prosecuting.

 

[blastula]

First case taken to trial is a fail for performative and fashy Desantis, and a win for justice. Though it will be appealed.

DeSantis voter fraud arrest rejected by Miami judge

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch ruled that Florida’s statewide prosecutor had no jurisdiction in the case.

www.tampabay.com

A Miami judge on Friday tossed out a criminal case against one of 19 people accused by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ election fraud force of voting illegally in the 2020 election.

In the first legal challenge to DeSantis’ arrests, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch rejected the idea that the Office of Statewide Prosecutor could charge Robert Lee Wood, 56, with registering to vote and casting a ballot in the general election.

Wood was convicted of second-degree murder in 1991, making him ineligible to vote.

Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said in a statement Friday that the judge had an “incorrect analysis” and the decision would be appealed.

Hirsch did not consider whether Wood broke the law. Instead, while quoting Shakespeare, he weighed whether the statewide prosecutor could bring the charges at all.

This earlier article shows video of the arrests, and you can even see not only were the defendants confused about their arrest, the police were too.

Police cameras show confusion, anger over DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests

Local police carrying out the arrests were patient, understanding — almost apologetic.

www.tampabay.com

 

[Jarhyn]

First case taken to trial is a fail for performative and fashy Desantis, and a win for justice. Though it will be appealed.

DeSantis voter fraud arrest rejected by Miami judge

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch ruled that Florida’s statewide prosecutor had no jurisdiction in the case.

www.tampabay.com

A Miami judge on Friday tossed out a criminal case against one of 19 people accused by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ election fraud force of voting illegally in the 2020 election.

In the first legal challenge to DeSantis’ arrests, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch rejected the idea that the Office of Statewide Prosecutor could charge Robert Lee Wood, 56, with registering to vote and casting a ballot in the general election.

Wood was convicted of second-degree murder in 1991, making him ineligible to vote.

Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said in a statement Friday that the judge had an “incorrect analysis” and the decision would be appealed.

Hirsch did not consider whether Wood broke the law. Instead, while quoting Shakespeare, he weighed whether the statewide prosecutor could bring the charges at all.

This earlier article shows video of the arrests, and you can even see not only were the defendants confused about their arrest, the police were too.

Police cameras show confusion, anger over DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests

Local police carrying out the arrests were patient, understanding — almost apologetic.

www.tampabay.com

"Incorrect analysis"... More like "Dressing an assertion fallacy up to make it sound fancy without any actual substance."

What's the incorrect analysis of there is one?

Sounds like the only "error" was not toeing the line.