A worrisome turning point for elections oversight

You picked a fine time to leave, Laurel Lee.

Florida’s chief elections official called it quits Wednesday and her last day is Monday. There’s no two-week notice for the Secretary of State, who’s expected to join the Republican primary for a new congressional seat in Tampa Bay weeks before the qualifying deadline.

Before Lee could clean out her desk, Gov. Ron DeSantis chose her replacement, and the worst fears of some of Florida’s election supervisors came true. He’s Rep. Cord Byrd, R-Neptune Beach, a staunch supporter of DeSantis and someone with no record of expertise in elections other than his 2020 sponsorship of a bill to allow counties to use auditing equipment for recounts. He has spent six years on the House Public Integrity & Elections Committee.

We saw it coming Thursday, based on information from sources.

Byrd, 51, is an Air Force veteran and attorney known for his advocacy of gun owners’ rights, part of his law practice. He will take charge of a new Office of Election Crimes and Security in the Department of State, the only election police force of its kind in the country. The Jacksonville-area lawmaker is at least the seventh legislator favored by DeSantis for high-level state appointments — a sign of how small his inner circle is.

In what sounded like a poll-tested statement, Byrd used the word “freedom” twice in accepting the job. “I will make sure Florida continues to have secure elections and that we protect the freedom of our citizens in the face of big-tech censorship and ever-growing cybersecurity threats,” Byrd said.

It was revealing, and troubling, that DeSantis gave these reasons why Byrd is the right person for the job: He sponsored or co-sponsored a ban on so-called sanctuary cities, an E-Verify law for hiring undocumented immigrants, the so-called “anti-riot” bill and the perversely misnamed “parents’ bill of rights.”

As Byrd arrives and Lee departs, the 2022 election cycle is about to hit full stride, with lawsuits flying in state and federal courts and the August primary ballot rounding into shape.

The abrupt exit of Lee, who’s been in charge almost since the start of DeSantis’ term, caught one very important constituency by surprise: the 67 county supervisors of elections who are the state’s crucial partners in running reliable, orderly and accurate elections. They liked working with Lee, and they are understandably apprehensive about her replacement.

Lee’s Department of State needs lots of things. What it doesn’t need is an Office of Election Crimes and Security, but it’s getting one anyway at the insistence of DeSantis, and it can only lead to problems. The law as written is an invitation to partisan witch hunts and fishing expeditions, with non-sworn political appointees able to conduct “independent inquiries” of “election irregularities.”

It would make sense if those investigators would get to the bottom of why some elderly Miami voters’ party affiliations were changed from Democrat to Republican without their consent, but nobody expects that to happen.

That’s the problem. Lee, a former circuit judge and wife of former state Sen. Tom Lee, was no political neophyte. She knew a squad of voting cops whose jobs are linked to the governor’s office is asking for trouble, not to mention the new FDLE agents DeSantis gets to appoint to work on elections cases. A late-starting run for Congress looks very inviting by comparison.

This is why the elections apparatus in Florida should be in the hands of an independently elected official — not under the thumb of a governor, especially one hell-belt on controlling everyone else’s behavior and who demonstrates White House aspirations. The temptation for abuse is too great.

Shortly before Byrd was announced, Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Chris Anderson told me he wanted the job. Anderson was appointed by DeSantis in 2019 after 13 years as a police officer and detective, mostly with the Indian River County Sheriff ’s Office.

He knows the criminal laws and election laws. He also happens to be Black. That should not make any difference, but it cannot be ignored because of the perception that the elections police could harass or intimidate voters in minority precincts.

He told me the next Secretary of State needs to explain to the public what those cops are there for and that “it is not going to have an adverse effect.” He gets it.

More about Cord Byrd: His wife Esther is a fiercely devoted Trumper and a recent DeSantis appointee to the state Board of Education who has publicly defended the Proud Boys and the Jan. 6 insurrection and has predicted “coming civil wars.” She has referred to anti-Trump protesters as “idiots” and criticized a Florida teacher who wore a “Protect Trans Kids” shirt to school on International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Esther Byrd is obviously a DeSantis type of political appointee, and so is her husband.