Election Police Force to Be Funded by $2.2 Million, According to Gov. Desantis
This past year, the Legislature didn’t give the unit as much as the government wanted.
Gov. Ron DeSantis wants an extra $2.2 million for an election police team that has caused a lot of trouble. But there’s no promise that the Legislature will pay for it.
DeSantis released his “Focus on Florida’s Future” budget this week. In it, he asked for money to hire 16 full-time workers for the Office of Election Crimes and Security.
The Governor’s budget has more than $1.38 million set aside to pay for these jobs. DeSantis also wants about $411,000 for different contracted services, more than $224,000 for costs that don’t involve staff and about $90,000 for other costs related to tools and people.
All of that is pretty much the same as what DeSantis asked for a year ago for this budget year, but it’s almost $1 million more than what lawmakers put in the budget for 2023–2024.
Last time, the Florida Legislature gave the election crimes office about $1.4 million.
That was about 20% more money for the office than the year before, but the Legislature didn’t approve as many full-time jobs or an equipment budget as DeSantis’ administration had asked for.
We will have to wait and see if the Legislature sees more value this year than last.
House Infrastructure and Tourism Appropriations Subcommittee Chair, State Rep. Alex Andrade, said he was “not sure yet” if the Legislature could do what the Governor asked.
“They asked for more FTEs last year, but we didn’t have enough money for them.” “It will depend on a lot of things, but it’s not a given that it will be funded,” Andrade said.
The poll force has also caused a lot of trouble.
As soon as it was created, the election police nabbed 20 people who the government said had registered to vote and voted illegally in the 2020 election.
Most of those people said they thought they could vote again after a 2018 constitutional amendment was passed. Many of them had even been called by state or county officials who told them to register. Several of them had charges against them dropped in the end.
In response, the Legislature gave the statewide prosecutor who works for Attorney General Ashley Moody more power to bring people to justice for election crimes.
