He successfully intimidated legal voters into not voting
Another Florida experiment getting the desired results:
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called a press conference in August to announce illegal voting charges against 20 Floridians with prior felony convictions ― all of whom seem not to have intentionally broken the law, but rather fallen victim to a confusing voter registration system ― a chill went over the state.
As a result, some would-be voters who actually are qualified to register, thanks to a constitutional amendment to restore former felons’ voting rights that Florida voters approved four years ago, are nevertheless passing on the opportunity because they’re worried they’ll go back to prison.
“We’ve already encountered other individuals who have said, ‘Look, I’m afraid to vote,’” said Mike Gottlieb, a Democratic state legislator who’s on the legal defense team for one of the men facing charges.
“I have not encountered in the past this many voters calling, concerned that they may be prosecuted or what-have-you for voter fraud,” Mark Earley, Leon County’s supervisor of elections, told News Service of Florida this week. “And these are all eligible voters that have contacted me.”
Gottlieb said he believed that DeSantis’ press conference, held in a courtroom in Florida’s bluest county, Broward, was “specifically designed to disenfranchise Democratic voters in Broward County” ― an accusation that a Florida Department of State spokesperson called “blatantly false.”
Nonetheless, news of the arrests quickly reverberated across the state.
“It’s had a major chilling effect,” Gottlieb said. “I think they’ve accomplished their goal. There are going to be people who are not interested in voting because they are concerned that they’re going to be arrested.”
It turns out that when you stage flamboyant arrests of people for fake voter fraud, it sends the message that voting may not be something you want to risk. Imagine that.
Look for more of this.