Ross: Florida election police could end up with a lot of free time

In our weekly segment with former state Attorney General Rob McKenna on Thursday, we discussed Florida’s new election police.

Rob found it to be an interesting concept but seemed to think that the officers would probably end up with a lot of free time:

“The research I’ve done indicates that Florida’s Department of State received 262 election fraud complaint forms in 2020 and referred 75 of them to law enforcement or prosecutors. That’s out of 11 million ballots cast for president in Florida, but apparently the Legislature and the governor think they need a dedicated force beyond what they already have.”

And so, Florida will soon have election police. They’ll be patrolling the drop boxes in their snappy red, white, and blue uniforms, carrying giant magnifying glasses and Number Two pencils, just in case voters forgot theirs.

Using their binoculars to scan the horizon for unauthorized water bottles …

And Florida isn’t the only state doing this! Republicans in the Georgia Legislature are also pushing for an election police force.

And Texas! Well, they already have the Texas Rangers, but they will be spending more money on fraud prosecution.

Of course, the key to rooting out fraud is getting tips from the public – and that’s why this story caught my attention:

The Charlotte News & Observer of Charlotte, North Carolina, reported Thursday on the case of a voter who registered in September 2020 using a cottage in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina, as his official address.

Well, a reporter got a tip from the owner of the cottage, who said it was actually rented for only two months by the man’s wife, who stayed for a few nights and never came back. According to neighbors, her husband was NEVER there.

Now, North Carolina doesn’t have any election police, but it does have a State Bureau of Investigation – which is now on this case.

And I bring this up because the voter in question is Mark Meadows, former North Carolina Congressman, former Chief of Staff to Donald Trump, and one of America’s leading crusaders against election fraud!

No charges have been filed, and there’s probably an innocent explanation, but I’m sure that as an anti-fraud crusader, Mark Meadows will insist that his case be rigorously pursued, and that he be punished if found guilty.

I doubt he has anything to worry about.

An extensive Associated Press investigation of the 2020 election found exactly ONE criminal sentence for vote fraud: 70-year-old Bruce Bartman of Pennsylvania, who used his dead mother’s driver’s license to vote on her behalf for Donald Trump. He was sentenced to five years of probation.

It was not enough to change the outcome of the election.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Follow @http://www.twitter.com/thedaveross