DeSantis and Uthmeier Announce 20 Election Fraud Arrests, Bringing the State Unit's Total to 100

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier announced last week that state agents have arrested 20 people on election fraud allegations, describing the cases at a news conference in Palm Beach County. Officials said 16 of those arrested were non-citizens accused of claiming United States citizenship in order to register and vote, and four had felony convictions and registered and voted while still serving probation.

Each charged offense is a third-degree felony under Florida law, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. All of those arrested are accused rather than convicted, and each is entitled to the presumption of innocence and to have the allegations tested in court.

Uthmeier said the arrests bring the total to 100 election fraud arrests since the creation of the Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security in April 2022. The announcement came roughly six weeks before the November 3 general election.

What the charges allege

The two categories described by officials involve distinct provisions of Florida election law. Registering to vote while not a United States citizen is prohibited, and the voter registration application requires an affirmation of citizenship under penalty of perjury. Falsely making that affirmation is the offense alleged against the 16.

The four cases involving felony convictions concern Florida's rules on restoration of voting rights. Amendment 4, approved by voters in 2018, restored voting eligibility to most people who completed their sentences for felony convictions, excluding those convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses. The Legislature subsequently enacted implementing legislation providing that completion of a sentence includes the satisfaction of all terms, including probation, parole and outstanding financial obligations.

The result is a system in which a person with a felony conviction can be eligible or ineligible depending on the status of their probation and any unpaid fines, fees or restitution. Those obligations are recorded across multiple county clerk and state agency systems that do not always reconcile with one another.

That complexity has been central to criticism of prosecutions in this category. Litigation following the 2018 amendment and the implementing statute established that Florida does not maintain a single authoritative database allowing a person to determine their own eligibility with certainty, a finding that has factored into how courts have treated the intent element of these cases.

The intent question

Florida's election fraud statutes generally require that a person act willfully, meaning a prosecutor must prove the defendant knew they were ineligible and registered or voted anyway. That element has been the pivot point in previous Florida cases.

When the state announced its first round of election fraud arrests in 2022, several of those cases were dismissed or resolved without felony convictions. In some instances, defendants had been issued voter registration cards by county election offices, and courts and prosecutors treated that as evidence undercutting the claim that the person knew they were ineligible.

Some of those early cases also raised a jurisdictional question. Because Florida's statewide prosecutor has authority limited to offenses occurring in multiple judicial circuits, courts dismissed charges where the alleged conduct occurred within a single circuit. Prosecutors subsequently refiled some cases in county courts.

Those outcomes do not predict the results in the current cases, which involve different individuals and different facts. They do establish that an arrest announcement in this category is the beginning of a legal process with a substantial history of cases resolving differently from how they were initially presented.

What the Office of Election Crimes and Security is

The Legislature created the office in 2022 as a unit within the Florida Department of State, with authority to investigate allegations of election law violations and to refer cases for prosecution. It was among the first state agencies of its kind in the country.

The office does not prosecute. It investigates and refers, with prosecution handled by the Office of Statewide Prosecution within the attorney general's office or by local state attorneys depending on jurisdiction. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducts arrests in many of these cases.

One hundred arrests over roughly four and a half years averages fewer than two per month statewide. Set against Florida's more than 14 million registered voters and the tens of millions of ballots cast across multiple election cycles in that period, the figure describes a small number of individual cases rather than a systemic pattern.

How to interpret that number is contested. Supporters of the office argue it demonstrates that enforcement capacity produces cases that would otherwise go undetected. Critics argue the totals show the underlying problem is rare enough that a dedicated agency is not warranted.

The non-citizen registration question

The 16 cases involving alleged non-citizen registration touch a subject that has received substantial national attention. Non-citizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections, and Florida prohibits it in state and local elections as well.

Research examining voter files and naturalization records has consistently found non-citizen voting to be rare, and Florida's own enforcement totals are consistent with that. The question is how cases occur at all, and the mechanisms are generally administrative rather than conspiratorial.

Registration in the United States commonly happens at motor vehicle offices under the National Voter Registration Act, and errors at that point of contact have produced registrations for people who were not eligible. Language barriers and confusion between lawful permanent residency and citizenship are documented sources of error.

That does not make the conduct lawful, and the state's position is that the affirmation on the registration form is unambiguous. It does mean the intent element will be central to how these specific cases resolve, because a person who was registered through an administrative process they did not fully understand is in a different position from one who knowingly made a false statement.

The political context

The announcement came from a news conference in Palm Beach County featuring both the governor and the attorney general, six weeks before an election in which Uthmeier is on the ballot seeking a full term as attorney general.

The ballot also includes the governor's race between Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly, a U.S. Senate contest, all of Florida's congressional seats and Amendment 3, the property tax measure. Recent polling from Stetson University showed Donalds leading Jolly 51 percent to 39 percent among 830 respondents surveyed September 14 to 21, with Republicans also holding a double-digit lead in the Senate race.

Uthmeier has been publicly active across multiple fronts in September, announcing a legislative proposal targeting fraudulent calls and texts, a lawsuit against insulin manufacturers over alleged price fixing, and drug trafficking arrests in Washington County.

Election integrity announcements before an election draw scrutiny from both directions. Supporters describe them as demonstrating that laws are enforced. Critics argue the timing serves a political purpose and that publicizing a small number of cases before an election can affect voter confidence disproportionately to the scale of the conduct.

What it means for Florida voters

For the overwhelming majority of Florida voters, these cases have no practical effect. Twenty arrests in a state with more than 14 million registered voters does not alter the mechanics of voting, the security of ballot processing or the reliability of results.

For voters with felony convictions, the cases underscore a genuine practical problem. Determining eligibility requires confirming that all terms of a sentence have been satisfied, including probation and any outstanding financial obligations, and the records governing that are held across county clerk offices, the Department of Corrections and the Commission on Offender Review.

Organizations including legal aid groups and rights restoration advocates provide assistance in determining eligibility, and county supervisors of elections can be contacted directly. A person uncertain about eligibility should resolve the question before registering rather than after.

For non-citizens, the guidance is straightforward: lawful permanent residents and other non-citizens are not eligible to register or vote in Florida, and a registration completed in error should be reported to the county supervisor of elections for cancellation.

The broader safeguards in Florida elections operate independently of these prosecutions. Ballots are tabulated on equipment that is tested publicly before each election, post-election audits compare machine counts against manual review of selected races, and canvassing boards in each county certify results through a public process.

Vote-by-mail ballots carry signature verification, with county staff comparing the signature on the return envelope against the signature on file. Voters whose signatures do not match receive notice and an opportunity to cure the defect before the deadline, which is a process voters should be aware of if they vote by mail.

What is next

Each of the 20 cases now proceeds through the criminal process, beginning with first appearance and arraignment. Charges will be filed formally by prosecutors, and defendants will have the opportunity to contest them, including on the intent element that has been decisive in prior Florida cases.

Jurisdictional questions may arise depending on where each alleged offense occurred and which prosecutor's office files the charges. That issue produced dismissals in the state's earlier round of election fraud prosecutions.

Early voting and vote-by-mail activity for the November 3 election begins in October, and county supervisors of elections across Florida's 67 counties administer the process. Voters with questions about registration status, polling locations or vote-by-mail ballots should contact their county supervisor directly.

The Office of Election Crimes and Security continues operating, and additional referrals and arrests are possible before and after the election. Its reports to the Legislature provide the public record of its activity and are the primary source for evaluating its output over time.

Floridians who encounter what they believe is an election law violation can report it to their county supervisor of elections or to the Florida Department of State. Those referrals, rather than independent agency detection, are the origin of a substantial share of the cases the state's election crimes unit investigates.