Mixed results so far for felons accused of illegally voting in 2020
Their arrests were announced with great fanfare — 20 convicted felons who finished serving their time were arrested in the summer of 2022, accused of illegally casting ballots in the 2020 election.
Today most of those cases have been resolved, though a handful are still being fought in state and appeals courts. Last month the Fourth District Court of Appeal took up a Broward County man’s case after a local judge dismissed it on jurisdictional grounds; the case was brought by the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor, which is supposed to handle crimes that are committed in more than one jurisdiction.
Five similar cases are waiting to be resolved across the state, all with lawyers making the same argument.
Whether they prevail or not, the prosecutions have already had a political impact. The arrests were part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement that his administration had created a new Office of Election Crimes and Security, and according to that agency’s annual report, the identified voters have been removed from voter rolls.
Attorneys for the offenders made nearly identical arguments in their court cases — they sincerely believed they were eligible after Florida voters approved a 2018 amendment restoring the rights of many convicted felons. But the amendment did not apply to people with convictions for murders or sex offenses.
Voter registration forms do ask applicants to affirm that they are not convicted felons or, if they are, that they had their rights restored. In each of the 20 cases, the offender filled out a form and received a voter ID, reinforcing their apparent belief that their rights had been restored, according to their attorneys.
The election integrity office also touted the arrests of an undocumented immigrant from Broward County with 10 felony convictions and a Palm Beach County man accused of registering to vote and casting ballots in both Florida and Alaska in 2020.
The accused immigrant from Broward, Alford Samuels, is still contesting the charges of “unqualified elector voting,” a third-degree felony carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison. His argument is the same as numerous others’ — the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor lacks the jurisdiction to handle the case.
Court papers filed by Samuels’ lawyers indicate he is a Jamaican citizen who is in the U.S. legally.
The cases demonstrate that incidents of voter fraud are not mythical. None of the allegations suggest fraud on a scale that could have tipped the 2020 election in Florida, which Donald Trump won by nearly 400,000 votes, or the 2022 election, which DeSantis won by 1.5 million votes and fellow Republican Marco Rubio won by 1.3 million.
The appeals court has not indicated when it will rule on the jurisdiction issue, which is almost certain to head to the state’s Supreme Court for a final decision.
