Florida caught a lot of heat (rightly so) after the mess of an election in 2000 — pregnant chads, anyone? In the years since, the Sunshine State has cleaned up its act significantly.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) joined Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” to discuss the measures Florida takes to shore up election integrity — and why confidence in election results is essential.
Here are the key points of their exchange:
BARTIROMO: Your reaction to what you just heard from AG Merrick Garland — and walk us through your plans to ensure a fair election in Florida.
DESANTIS: Well, you pointed out on the chyron, Maria, we have banned ballot harvesting in the state of Florida and imposed stiff penalties — that should be done nationwide. Of course, we require photo ID in order to vote, we’ve banned the use of “Zucker Bucks,” and we’ve been aggressive at policing the voter rolls so that we have accurate voter rolls. And when people have run afoul of our election laws, this Election Crimes Unit we’ve created has been able to investigate, refer these people to prosecution — and you’ve had over 50 people, just in the last couple of years, that have been convicted of various types of voter fraud.
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[T]he Democrats oppose voter ID because they want there to be illegal votes — there’s no other reason. I think back when I was a naval officer, Maria — if you wanted to come on a Navy base, you had to show your ID. It didn’t matter whether you were black, white, rich, poor — it didn’t matter. If you show a photo ID, they know who you are, you can get in. If you don’t, you wouldn’t. If you were a foreigner with no ID, of course they wouldn’t let you in, and we see ID being used in so many other aspects of American life.
So, we’re doing it right in Florida. Some other Republican states, I think, are doing it right. There are some of these blue states, though, who do not do any of the safeguards that we’re doing here in Florida.