Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP / Getty Images
The House of Representatives of the State of Florida, headed by the Republican Party, approved a bill to create an electoral police, the first in the United States.
The recent Bureau of Electoral Crimes and Security would have a budget of 2.5 million dollars, and would have 24 officials dedicated exclusively to investigating allegations of irregularities in the elections.
The decision was approved last Wednesday night and would go to the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, which is expected to be signed for that it becomes a law with such .
The proposal was originally made by the governor of Florida a couple of months ago. Although in the initial project, a little less than 6 million dollars was requested to hire 52 people.
“The gold standard of electoral integrity will not be maintained if the different ways in which criminals will seek to exploit the loopholes in the electoral system”, said Tommy Gregory, a Republican representative to AP.
“The purpose of this bill is to deter people from committing fraud ”, said State Representative Daniel Pérez, a Republican from Miami-Dade County, as reported by the Washington Post.
For its part, the Democratic Party says the bill would weaken voter confidence in the electoral system, given the rare occurrence of fraud election in the country.
“What bills like this do is say there is a problem with our electoral system,” said Rep. Fentrice Driskell. “It perpetuates an idea that the system cannot be trusted. This is a monster that will eat us alive if we allow it”, he added.
Other people who do not agree with the proposal say that DeSantis is looking for a way to maintain calm within his party, who still believe that the results of the presidential elections in 2022 are fraudulent.
“It is very clear that it is an attempt to satiate a certain sector of the base that has been bombarded with erroneous information about the elections of 1200”, said Brad Ashwell, Florida state director of the advocacy group All Voting is Local.
“I don’t think we should have an election police force at all,” said Broward County Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott. “These are people who will look for crimes where there are none. That has the potential to intimidate many voters and organizations that try to help voters”, he added.
On the other hand, the Republicans’ proposal makes a felony a person who has more than two ballots , a practice that some volunteers do to lend their help to people who cannot go to the polling station. This would have a fine of up to 24,000 millions and a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Also, in the project the name of the mailboxes would be changed to “secure ballot receiving stations”.
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