DeSantis’ elections police force is in shambles

TALLAHASSEE — On his way to a second term, Gov. Ron DeSantis made “election integrity” a buzzword and got the Legislature to spend $1.2 million on a new special unit to fight voter fraud.

The Office of Election Crimes and Security sounds impressive. It isn’t. Like so much in DeSantis World, the reality can’t live up to the hype.

Six months after its creation, the Office of Election Crimes and Security has no permanent director, and most of the 15 full-time jobs that the Legislature funded are unfilled, according to the DeSantis administration. The unit’s first big case — the showy roundup of 20 ex-felons last summer on charges of voting illegally — has collapsed, with four cases dismissed by judges and one conviction. One. A woman in Tampa pleaded no contest and was assessed $548 in court costs.

Before it’s over, taxpayers will have paid a mountain of money in legal fees on these weak cases.

As DeSantis keeps losing voter fraud cases in court, it’s unlikely that many more cases are forthcoming anytime soon. That’s because there’s almost nobody around to investigate them.

An organizational chart of the Office of Election Crimes and Security, provided by the state and dated Jan. 9, lists the word “vacant” alongside 11 of 15 budgeted positions. Since then, another vacancy arose when the unit’s acting director, Scott Strauss, resigned.

Strauss was hired after the sudden death last September of the unit’s first director, Pete Antonacci. For the time being, the acting director is Brooke Renney, a former legislative aide and political operative who once headed “election integrity” for the Republican Party of Florida.

DeSantis is the nation’s best-known governor and a serious potential presidential candidate, and one of his signature issues is fighting the threat of voter fraud — albeit a grossly exaggerated threat. It’s true, mid-level jobs in state government don’t pay well, but the benefits are very good and any job under DeSantis looks great on a Republican resume.

So why doesn’t anybody want to work there?

DeSantis’ chief elections official, Secretary of State Cord Byrd, suggested that the unit has gone rudderless since Antonacci died.

“Pete had a law enforcement background. He’d been a judge, and he’d been a supervisor of elections. He was somewhat of a unicorn in that world,” Byrd told reporters. “It’s important to find someone who has election experience, legal experience, a criminal law background. That’s been some of the challenge that we’ve had … I want to make sure that we recruit the right people, with the right skill set, and not bring just anybody in, because the work is just too important.”

Byrd was a controversial choice to oversee the state’s election apparatus because of his hard-right profile as a former state House member. But he has visited every county elections office, and supervisors speak glowingly about his spirit of cooperation. At a legislative hearing this week, Byrd shared the podium with two supervisors, Ron Turner of Sarasota and Mark Earley of Tallahassee

Testifying before a House elections panel, Byrd cited a fraud case initiated by his unit. Cheryl Ann Leslie, 55, of Loxahatchee, a physician’s assistant, was charged in November with two counts of casting ballots in Alaska and Palm Beach County in 2020.

Even though most jobs are unfilled at the Office of Election Crimes and Security, DeSantis’ administration is asking the Legislature for a lot more money and manpower — which makes no sense.

Byrd’s legislative budget request, known as an LBR, which had to pass muster with the governor’s budget experts, includes a request for $2,285,837 to hire 27 more full-time employees in the election crimes unit.

That number is no coincidence: Those 27 positions were in DeSantis’ original request last year, and the Legislature budgeted 15. What has happened since then shows that lawmakers’ instincts were right all along.

The next time Byrd appears at the Capitol, lawmakers need to ask him some good, tough questions. There’s no way this politically inspired office should get another dime of public money. Its biggest case is a big mess and there are empty desks everywhere.

If anything, DeSantis owes Florida taxpayers a refund.

Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the

Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee. Contact him at sbousquet@sunsentinel.com or 850-567-2240 and follow him on Twitter @stevebousquet.