Conservative "election integrity" activists killed a Florida bill that would have protected election workers from harassment.
A group linked to the Election Integrity Network launched by Republican lawyer and Ginni Thomas friend Cleta Mitchell raised objections to a measure that would have imposed third-degree felony charges for harassing or intimidating election workers with the intention of interfering with their duties, and the GOP-led legislature quickly dropped the bill, according to emails provided to CNN.
“[Poll workers] work very long hours under difficult and demanding conditions with lots of responsibility, and the least we can do is make sure they are treated properly,” said Mark Earley, the elections supervisor in Leon County and head of a statewide association for those officials.
“I think all of the supervisors were pretty surprised it wasn’t included in the final bill,” he said of the anti-harassment language. “It seemed like a pretty obvious and easy step to take.”
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Emails obtained through public records requests by the investigative group Documents reveal that a coalition called Florida Fair Elections lobbied lawmakers, and the provision establishing felony charges was removed from a broad election bill that passed late last month and was signed Tuesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“The election denial movement looks different today than it looked in 2020 or 2022," said Joanna Lydgate, the president and CEO of the States United Democracy Center. "There’s so much more that’s happening under the surface. This is a well-coordinated attack on our elections. It’s not letting up.”
Another organization aligned with Mitchell's network is pushing a North Carolina bill that would give partisan poll watchers more freedom to observe election activity and make it difficult to eject them, after GOP appointees rejected an election board's stricter rules for observers after complaints of interference in last year's primary elections.
