Will voters be surprised by attempts to block their ballots? | Editorial

January 6, 2021, and its aftermath taught us something about this nation that’s hard to fathom: There’s a growing group of people who view elections as threats to democracy.

And no, we’re not talking about the ridiculous claims about elections officials tampering with ballots. Yet those lies — starting with The Big Lie, that Donald Trump was somehow cheated of victory in an election he lost by 7 million popular votes and a decisive Electoral College tally — should be viewed as part of the campaign to discourage people who might otherwise vote.

Discourage them. Trick them. Harass them. Frighten them. Block them. Pick your anti-voter poison. It’s all happening. Florida might not be seeing the crazed extremes of other states, such as the armed and obviously intimidating folks “guarding” ballot drop boxes in Arizona.

But paranoia is on the rise. Many Florida elections officials have seen an upswing in the number of people who want to watch ballots being verified — and have expanded rights, under a 2021 state law, to inspect and challenge a ballot. Before the passage of SB 90, these pollwatchers could only do that once a questionable ballot had been handed off to the county’s canvassing board. Why did GOP lawmakers want to allow partisan forces to interject themselves more deeply into the vote-counting process? Why did Gov. Ron DeSantis and then-Secretary of State Laurel Lee grant several meetings to a group called DefendFlorida, which claims to be nonpartisan but links to extremist groups on its website ― and which says it has evidence of thousands of voting “irregularities’ from the 2020 elections. Their proposed remedy? Kill the two most popular forms of voting in Florida: Mail and early voting.

Meanwhile, we’re waiting to see what DeSantis’ new elections law enforcement unit does next. Its first stunt in August — staging humiliating arrests of 20 former felons who were accused of voting even though they were ineligible — is crumbling rapidly, as evidence mounts that most of those arrested had been told by various government officials that they could register and vote. On Oct. 21, the first of those cases was dismissed. We expect other acquitals to follow, but we also know the damage that’s been done.

Former felons who want to vote might now think twice, afraid that they will be the next to hear that knock on their door.

Meanwhile, local and state voter-advocacy groups are wondering what threats might emerge in the coming weeks. They recall the wild rumors that spread on Florida Spanish-language radio stations prior to Election Day 2020, including rumors that Black Lives Matter was engaging in some form of “brujería,” (witchcraft) to steal votes for Joe Biden. Most of us also saw disinformation circulating on social media.

That discouragement is bad enough. But Florida’s leading civil-rights groups wrote Attorney General Ashley Moody last week because they’re worried about more confrontational, even violent efforts to block voters at the polls during early voting and on Election Day. It cites groups emerging from the shadows — including an apparent resurgence of Florida’s Proud Boy faction, which has intimidated voters in the past and One More Mission, a new group backed by former Trump official and election-conspiracy pusher Michael Flynn. PBS’s Frontline recently aired an episode that took viewers inside Flynn’s appearance at a bunker-like far-right community venue in Sarasota County known as The Hollow, where he urged members to sign up to become pollworkers and pollwatchers. The Princeton University Bridging Divides Initiative ranks Florida third in the number of voter-intimidation incidents in the past two years. The nonpartisan Election Protection Initiative logged hundreds of calls from Florida in 2020.

The groups signing the Moody letter, which include the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Common Cause Florida, All Voting is Local Florida, LatinoJustice, the League of Women Voters of Florida and others, asked Moody to issue a statement condemning these acts and promising to prosecute. We hope such a statement is forthcoming.

Because unlike the imaginary sins contemplated by DeSantis’ new police force, voter harassment and intimidation are real crimes, prosecutable under state and federal law, and they can take many forms — Employers who threaten their workers if they vote against management’s wishes. Neighbors who vandalize cars because they object to a political bumper sticker. Scary social-media posts about retribution against the “woke left.”

If you feel targeted by this, help is out there. We’ve included voter-help hotlines which will have advice and if needed, legal help standing by. On our website, we’ll have the editorial we published earlier this week, with an overview of voters’ rights and responsibilities.

We struggle to comprehend the mentality of people — from Florida’s top officials to the thuggish groups behind the Jan. 6, 2021 invasion of our nation’s Capitol — who call themselves proud Americans but then fight to make voting more difficult or block access to the polls altogether. But we don’t need to understand it. We just need to stand against it. Hold on to this most precious right. And remember that if you are targeted, you are not alone: There is help out there. This is your right, and they have your back.

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The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com