Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has dispatched his "election police" to arrest Florida voters who were told they were allowed to vote by election staff but they weren't supposed to.
A few years ago, Florida citizens overwhelmingly voted in support of a ballot measure that restored voting rights to felons who had served their time. So, those felons went to the polls and relied on government employees to tell them what to do. Now they're being arrested.
Republican commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin implied that it was all a political ploy by DeSantis to force Democrats to support pedophiles and murderers.
"Ron DeSantis is trying to bait the media, liberal media I would say, into coming out to defend violent offenders and murderers who tried to illegally vote," she said. "He wants us all to say, of course, murderers should be able to vote. There's a real discussion to be had. I believe in restoring voting rights for felons, but not violent offenders. If you care about addressing voter fraud, there's a certain Florida resident who's guilty of trying to defraud 81 million people of their votes, Donald Trump. We're not doing anything about."
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"The governor's crackdown wound up with all of 20 arrests in total, 13 of whom were Black," said Whoopi Goldberg. "So what is going on? They said that if you are a felon, you would be able to vote. I thought when you go to the place to register to say, here I am, they look and they say: 'Okay. No, you can't or yes, you can.' So where is the information that says unless you are a pedophile or a murderer, you are not allowed to vote? Clearly, it's not written anywhere that they would not allow him to do this. And where is Ron DeSantis -- what are you doing, man? Why are you doing this? This is your problem. You set these people up to be part of this voter fraud thing that you keep looking for. And you set these people up. What are you doing, and why -- why is this, you know — it didn't use to be you had to be concerned about voting. It was very clear. You had a right to do XYZ. When they say to you and the governor says, this is how we're doing it, and we say, okay. This is how we're doing it. Why isn't he standing up now?"
Joy Behar explained this was part of the new GOP plot because they are growing increasingly unpopular, so they have to restrict voting.
"I thought what was interesting also is beyond the absurdity of the fact some of these people were told in these videos that were released at the DMV," Sara Haines said. "'I don't think I'm able to vote' and the government employee said, 'You've already served your time. Are you on probation?' No. You're fine,' and go vote. And you're being arrested. Oftentimes it's the right that talks so much about the left being soft on crime. Here he created The Office of Election Crimes and Security this year, they were given a staff of 15 to go and do this sort of work. To me, this is soft on crime. There are real criminals. There are real things happening in this country and you are now kind of -- what is it? Entrapment almost with telling people they can. That's a waste of law enforcement."
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At the close, Goldberg called out DeSantis for the behavior.
"This is double trauma. Somebody serves their time. They get out, okay? And you come along and you say, 'Oh. You voted fraudulently, so I'm arresting you not, like, let's see what this is about. I'm taking you in.' Ron DeSantis, shame on you. Shame, shame, shame on you."
Watch video below or at this link.
