The real election fraud wasn't by 20 ex-cons but one current governor

The first arrests by Gov. Ron DeSantis' new election police lived up to their intent. That is, the staged announcements about voter fraud distracted from actual misdeeds by the governor — his redrawing of congressional district maps to favor his party despite a law enacted to prevent that.

The arrests won the governor the attention he craved, at the expense of 20 released ex-cons. The 20, including three from Palm Beach County, had served their time and for all appearances had no idea they'd broken the law again, much less by committing that most heinous of all crimes — voting. They'd heard the law had changed and that felons were eligible to have their rights restored and were encouraged to register.

Florida voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment in 2018 to restore released felons' voting rights. The law required they first pay whatever fines, fees and restitution they owed, and specified they wouldn't be eligible if they'd been convicted of murder or sex crimes. But it turns out the DeSantis administration is more efficient at, and the governor more enthusiastic about, re-arresting hapless felons than telling them when they apply whether they qualify.

The law was written to help people who paid their dues rejoin society, not to score political points by trapping and re-caging for up to five years those who unintentionally violate its restrictions.

Of course a state has the right to enforce its laws but as Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican who drafted the amendment's implementing legislation, wrote on Twitter last week, "it was our intent that those ineligible would be granted some grace by the state if they registered without the intent to commit voter fraud."

We know where these arrests are coming from: from the Big Lie that voter fraud runs rampant and that it unfairly denied Donald Trump re-election. To denounce the Big Lie could be political suicide for DeSantis, an assumed 2024 presidential-hopeful. Instead he has chosen to score points off the Big Lie by sowing further distrust of the system.

DeSantis acknowledged that Florida election supervisors conducted virtually fraud-free elections in 2020. Yet the state shouldn't rest on its laurels, he said. Hence, his new Office of Election Crimes and Security, to keep us on the straight and narrow by fixing a problem that didn't exist, at least not to the extent it mattered.

Meanwhile DeSantis created a far worse problem, one with a more insidious impact. When it came time to redraw congressional district maps, he rejected those the Legislature crafted in accordance with the Fair Districts amendments, which banned partisan gerrymandering in the state.

Instead he drew his own map, intentionally eliminating a majority Black district in northern Florida and diminishing the sway of Blacks and other minorities likely to vote against the GOP elsewhere.

The League of Women Voters and other organizations immediately sued. But while those cases wind their way through the system, DeSantis' racist, partisan map will taint one election after another and he knows it. The last time the GOP tried that, a decade ago, it took three years for the courts to call out the cheating and have the maps rewritten.

How many more Florida voters will be disenfranchised this time, while we wait for justice? Where are the election police now?

Voter registration arrests and partisan redistricting have one thing in common, aside from hiding behind a curtain of duplicity. They both aim to diminish the influence of minorities, in order to strengthen Republican power in Washington and Tallahassee.

There's a reason African-Americans by and large don't vote Republican. They know who has their fair treatment in mind. It's not someone who threatens them with arrest if they make a mistake when registering. And it's not someone who redraws district lines so that when they do vote, it can't possibly make a difference in their lives.

The only answer, while we wait for the courts — and hope they've not been corrupted with partisan bias, too — is for the good people of Florida to turn out in such overwhelming numbers at the next election that the cheaters can't win, even on a tilted game board. So we implore you, as November nears: register and vote.

— This editorial represents the opinion of the Palm Beach Post Editorial Board, which is comprised of its executive editor, editorial page editor and editorial writer.

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This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Editorial: Gov. Ron DeSantis' election police target wrong people