{"id":962665,"date":"2021-11-03T13:58:46","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T17:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=962665"},"modified":"2021-11-03T13:58:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T17:58:49","slug":"ron-desantis-announces-key-steps-to-ensure-election-integrity-in-florida-ballot-harvesting-third-degree-felony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ron-desantis-announces-key-steps-to-ensure-election-integrity-in-florida-ballot-harvesting-third-degree-felony\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron DeSantis Announces Key Steps to Ensure Election Integrity in Florida: Ballot Harvesting Third-Degree Felony"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fron-desantis-announces-key-steps-to-ensure-election-integrity-in-florida-ballot-harvesting-third-degree-felony%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=962665&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1323562567-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday announced four key steps he is urging the state legislature to take to enhance election integrity in Florida, one of which includes elevating the crime of ballot harvesting \u2014 a Democrat favorite \u2014 to a felony.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement came the morning after Tuesday night\u2019s election, which seemed to bolster confidence among GOP voters, showing that Republicans can, in fact, win elections amid fears of election fraud and political malfeasance. Speaking from West Palm Beach, the Republican governor listed four key steps he is urging the Florida legislature to take ahead of the midterm elections. He noted the steps the state has already taken, including requiring voter ID to vote, banning ballot harvesting, stopping the unsolicited sending of ballots, and banning \u201cZuckerbucks,\u201d money that tech moguls pour into nonprofits and use as \u201celectioneering machinery.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>However, DeSantis believes safeguards should be strengthened further, which is why he is urging the legislature to take additional steps in the next session, pushing another package for election integrity reform.<\/p>\n<p>First, DeSantis is urging the legislature to create the Office of Election Crimes and Security, \u201csolely dedicated to investigating and prosecuting election fraud.\u201d This will include sworn-in officers, as well as investigators.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat will happen is, if someone\u2019s ballot harvesting, you report it to these people, and this is their sole job,\u201d he said, noting some counties take these cases but recognizing they are often overwhelmed with other issues as well.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Additionally, although ballot harvesting is already illegal in Florida, DeSantis said they are going to change the violation from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.<\/p>\n<p>Cleaning the voter rolls is also a top priority, and while there are requirements, \u201cthe problem is, there is no time limits on when they have to do it,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we\u2019re going to impose time frames where supervisors of elections must clean their voter rolls\u201d of ineligible voters, the governor announced.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, DeSantis said it is time to crack down on ballot drop boxes, although he noted that he is personally not a fan of those.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut at the end of the day, it has to be in places where they can be observed the whole time, so you have video and somebody in person,\u201d he said, explaining the additional steps that must be taken.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you\u2019re going to now be in a situation where if you see if somebody brings a stack of ballots and they\u2019re stuffing them in a drop box, you have a place that will field these complaints and immediately be able to investigate,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis\u2019s announcement follows a series of Republican victories on Tuesday\u2019s election night. Among the major wins is Republican <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/03\/governors-race-winner-glenn-youngkin-change-democrat-virginia\/\">Glenn Youngkin\u2019<\/a>s defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia\u2019s governor\u2019s race, but the progressive agenda was also defeated elsewhere, including in Minneapolis, where voters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/02\/minneapolis-votes-no-abolish-police-despite-ilhan-omar\/\">rejected<\/a> a measure to abolish the police force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday announced four key steps he is urging the state legislature to take to enhance election integrity in Florida, one of which includes elevating the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-962665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}