By GARY FIELDS, ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE and SUDHIN THANAWALA, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — State-level law enforcement units created after the 2020 presidential election to research voter fraud are looking into scattered complaints greater than two weeks after the midterms but have provided no indication of systemic problems.
That is just what election experts had expected and led critics to suggest that the brand new units were more about politics than rooting out widespread abuses. Most election-related fraud cases already are investigated and prosecuted on the local level.
Florida, Georgia and Virginia created special state-level units after the 2020 election, all pushed by Republican governors, attorneys general or legislatures.
“I’m not aware of any significant detection of fraud on Election Day, but that’s not surprising,” said Paul Smith, senior vp of the Campaign Legal Center. “The entire concept of voter impersonation fraud is such a horribly exaggerated problem. It doesn’t change the final result of the election, it is a felony, you risk getting put in jail and you’ve a high possibility of getting caught. It is a rare phenomena.”
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The absence of widespread fraud is significant since the lies surrounding the 2020 presidential election spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies have penetrated deeply into the Republican Party and eroded trust in elections. Within the run-up to this 12 months’s elections, 45% of Republicans had little to no confidence that votes can be counted accurately.
An Associated Press investigation found there was no widespread fraud in Georgia or the five other battleground states where Trump disputed his 2020 loss, and to this point there isn’t a indication of that on this 12 months’s elections. Certification of the outcomes goes easily in most states, with few complaints.
In Georgia, where Trump tried to pressure state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss, a latest law gives the state’s top law enforcement agency, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, authority to initiate investigations of alleged election fraud and not using a request from election officials. The alleged violation would should be significant enough to vary or create doubt in regards to the final result of an election.
GBI spokesperson Nelly Miles said the agency has not initiated any investigations under the statute. The agency is assisting the secretary of state’s office in an investigation of a breach of voting equipment in Coffee County in 2021, but that’s its only recent election fraud investigation, she said in an email.
That breach, which got here to light earlier this 12 months, involved local officials in a county that voted for Trump by nearly 40 percentage points in 2020 and a few high-profile supporters of the previous president.
State Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat who opposed the extra authority for the bureau, said the dearth of investigations validates the criticism that the law was unnecessary. But she said just the prospect of a GBI investigation could intimidate individuals who wish to function poll employees or tackle another role within the voting process.
“In this case, there was no actual problem to be solved,” Clark said. “This was an answer on the lookout for an issue, and that’s never the way in which that we must always legislate.”
Florida has been essentially the most visible state, creating its Office of Election Crimes and Security amid much fanfare this 12 months and keeping a pledge that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis made in 2021 to combat unspecified election fraud.
The office is under the Florida Department of State. It reviews allegations after which tasks state law enforcement with pursuing violations.
DeSantis this summer announced the election unit had arrested 20 people for illegally voting within the 2020 election, when the state had 14.4 million registered voters. That was the primary major election since a state constitutional amendment restored voting rights for felons, aside from those convicted of murder or felony sex crimes or those that still owe fines, fees or restitution.
Court records show the 20 people were in a position to register to vote despite prior felony convictions, apparently leading them to consider they may legally forged ballots. A minimum of a part of the confusion stems from language within the voter registration forms that requires applicants to swear they should not a felon — or in the event that they are, that they’ve had their rights restored. The forms don’t inquire specifically about past convictions for murder and felony sexual assault.
Considered one of the people charged, 56-year-old Robert Lee Wood, had his home surrounded early one morning by law enforcement officers who banged on his door and arrested him. He spent two days in jail. Wood’s lawyer, Larry Davis, said his client didn’t think he was breaking the law because he was in a position to register to vote without issue. Davis called the law enforcement response “excessive” on this case.
Wood’s case was dismissed by a Miami judge in late October on jurisdictional grounds, since it was brought by the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor reasonably than local prosecutors in Miami. The state is appealing the ruling.
Andrea Mercado, executive director of Florida Rising, an independent political activist organization focused on economic and racial justice within the state, said the disproportionate targeting of such would-be voters was sending a “chilling message to all returning residents who wish to register to vote.” She said her group found that a lot of them were confused in regards to the requirements.
“You may have to go to 67 counties’ web sites and find their individual county processes to see if you’ve a superb or fee,” she said. “It’s a labyrinthian ordeal.”
Weeks before the Nov. 8 election, the Office of Election Crimes and Security began notifying Florida counties of a whole bunch of registered voters who potentially were ineligible to vote due to prior convictions. In letters to the counties, state officials asked that election officials confirm the data after which take motion to forestall ineligible voters from casting ballots.
“We’ve heard stories about voters who’re eligible to vote but have a criminal conviction of their past, they usually are actually scared to register and vote,” said Michael Pernick, a voting rights attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He called it “deeply concerning.”
A spokesman for the brand new office didn’t provide information related to another actions it might need taken or investigations it might need underway related to this 12 months’s primary and general elections.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced he was forming his own Election Integrity Unit in September, saying it will “work to assist restore confidence in our democratic process within the Commonwealth.”
The formation of the unit got here in a state where Republicans swept the three statewide offices in 2021 elections, including Miyares’ defeat of a Democratic incumbent.
His spokeswoman, Victoria LaCivita, said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press that the office had received complaints connected to this month’s elections, but she couldn’t comment on whether any investigations had resulted.
As well as, “the EIU successfully got a demurrer and a motion to dismiss” an try and force the state to desert its use of electronic voting machines to count ballots and institute a statewide hand count.
Miyares’ office said he was not available for an interview, but in a letter to the editor in The Washington Post in October he stated there was no widespread fraud in Virginia or anywhere else through the 2020 election. He said his office already had jurisdiction in election-related issues but that he was restructuring it right into a unit to work more cooperatively with the election community to allay any doubts in regards to the fairness of elections.
Smith, of the Campaign Legal Center, said there are real issues related to election security, including protecting voters, poll employees and elections staff, and securing voting equipment. But he said Republican steps to spice up what they often consult with as “election integrity” to combat voter fraud often are about something else.
“It’s a myth that’s created so that they can justify making it harder for people to vote,” he said.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
Izaguirre reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Thanawala from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Bob Christie and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia; and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, and contributed to this report.
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