Holy Ron
And speaking of Saudi Arabia and grotesque levels of suppression and punitive absence of rights, meet Ron DeSantis’s Florida:
I stopped breathing while watching this clip. You know how you do, in shock and disbelief? Like that.
The Tampa Bay Times has details:
When police went to arrest Tony Patterson outside his Tampa home in August, he couldn’t believe the reason.
“What is wrong with this state, man?” Patterson protested as he was being escorted to a police car in handcuffs. “Voter fraud? Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man.”
Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security.
The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a news conference to tout his crackdown on alleged voter fraud — were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement.
We have been here before. We were here for years and years; for decades.
Romona Oliver, 55, was about to leave for work when police walked up her driveway at 6:52 a.m. and told her they had a warrant for her arrest.
“Oh my God,” she said.
An officer told her she was being arrested for fraud, a third-degree felony, for voting illegally in 2020.
“Voter fraud?” she said. “I voted, but I ain’t commit no fraud.”
This is literally how it was done in the many decades after Reconstruction was terminated. Rules and regulations designed to entrap black voters which were never invoked for white voters. This is the playbook.
Jim Crow can still squawk.
Pure intimidation. First, they have to prove that the voter willfully broke the law–given all the confusion, that’s not going to happen. And then there’s this:
Sounds like prosecutorial overreach.
DeSantis could well be our next president. And he’d probably be even worse than Trump, if only because he’s smarter and not as lazy.
I’ve seen a bit reported elsewhere about this situation. Voters arrested are overwhelmingly black and democrat. The aim is clearly voter suppression. More importantly, the vast majority of those arrested had, when seeking voter registration, had their eligibility to vote checked by the de Santis administration before the issue of a voter ID card. Was the ‘sure you’re eligible’ incompetence or entrapment? Now an impartial Court might be inclined to look at the situation and say that if even the State can’t figure out eligibility how can an individual, or that if the State knew they weren’t eligible and told them they were – and then arrested them – that was clearly wrong also. Such a Court might let them off with a warning. Then again this is Florida.
this situation, and the broader background to it, is an outrage.
Even when the courts dismiss the cases against them, they will have had legal bills, will owe bail bondsmen for the fee for the $2k bond, will have had the video of them being arrested on TV, but not the release, and other eligible voters will see that and decide it may not be worth the risk to vote. The arrests were for a 2 year old election, and you can bet that the reason for arresting them now was to let people know to be on their guard.
I know a few people that love to go to Florida in the winter. I have no interest, not even for Disney World, to set foot in that state.
Mike, if I did have any interest in Florida, Disney World would convince me otherwise. (Though for a plant taxonomist, it’s probably great to tromp around in…and depressing, because they’re destroying it so fast.)
Not to say there isn’t a racial element, but they did go after some white people:
https://youtu.be/6B8ERDMC-kA
These are the friendliest, most apologetic arrests I’ve ever seen. The cops know this is ridiculous.
One person said they were sure they weren’t allowed to vote but when getting their driver’s license they were told they were probably eligible and to just apply and if they got their voter’s card then they were fine. And then this happens. All the state had to do was not send them a card.
I think this is mostly about DeSantis showing he’s “cracking down on voter fraud” because so many MAGA types are obsessed with the issue and he wants to appeal to them.
They would rather prevent 5k people from voting in order to stop 1 fraudulent voter, Skeletor.