Despite the fact that Donald Trump won Florida's 29 Electoral College votes with over 51 percent of the vote in 2020's presidential election, the Tampa Bay Times reports that his convincing win hasn't kept some of his most rabid supporters from going to door-to-door looking for evidence of election fraud.
While Arizona lawmakers embraced an "audit" of the votes in Maricopa County that ended up showing President Joe Biden was shortchanged in the vote count, in Florida, lawmakers are casting a skeptical eye on the idea of their own audit.
That hasn't kept Trump partisans from doing their own detective work looking for malfeasance by questioning homeowners.
As the Times report notes, "A recent Saturday morning found [64-year-old Debbie] Horgan, [61-year-old Kevin] May and 77-year-old Paul Jordan on a mission. They drove around Pasco County seeking to ferret out voter fraud that local and state election officials have affirmed doesn't exist. Each knock presented an opportunity to find someone whose address didn't match theirvoter registration — and cast doubt on Florida's election systems," with the report adding, "Across Florida, former President Donald Trump's most ardent supporters are scouring communities for evidence of voter fraud. They are bombarding local elections offices with calls and emails. They are showing up wherever lawmakers are meeting, demanding an audit of last November's presidential contest that installed Democrat Joe Biden in the White House."
According to the elderly Jordan, "I'm doing this because I want to give America a chance."
Those three are affiliated with Defend Florida, "an offshoot of a national group called Defend our Union founded by conservatives after Trump's defeat," who have set up up their own chatrooms where they coordinate with each other to press local state officials to do an audit despite Trump's win.
As the Times reports, Mark Andersen, the Republican elections supervisor in Bay County in the Florida Panhandle, recently spoke with members via Zoom to explain how his office tallied the votes and try to put their minds at ease.
As he explained to the Times, his office already audits every vote, and he admitted he was open to an investigation -- but only if he was handed evidence of real fraud.
Speaking with the Defend Florida members, he told them, "Show it to me, if you have it. But if you have stuff that's just bogus, then stop with the bogus behavior."
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