Charge from DeSantis’ elections office leads to partial acquittal

Nearly all of the cases brought by Florida Gov. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ election crimes office haven’t gone well, but as The Tampa Bay Times reported, prosecutors managed to get a partial conviction this week.

At issue was a local man named Nathan Hart, who was told he was eligible to vote, despite a previous felony conviction, and Hillsborough County approved his voter-registration application. When he cast a ballot in 2020, Hart believed it was entirely legitimate.

He was nevertheless charged with two third-degree felonies: false affirmation in connection with an election — Hart signed a registration form saying he was eligible, because he thought he was — and illegal voting.

The judge in the case offered the defendant a deal: If Hart agreed to plead guilty, he’d receive no punishment whatsoever beyond the time he’d already spent in jail. The Floridian balked, insisting he didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong.

The result was a split verdict: Following a very brief trial, a jury found him guilty of false affirmation, but not guilty of illegal voting.

For those who might benefit from a refresher, let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.

DeSantis held a news conference last summer, making what he seemed to think was an important announcement: The Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security — a well-funded office he created to pursue a problem that didn’t appear to exist in any meaningful way — had found 20 people who voted illegally in 2020.

The Florida Republican, surrounded by uniformed officers, assured the public that the suspects were in custody and would be prosecuted.

As regular readers may recall, DeSantis seemed pleased with himself. He had created an election crimes office and it uncovered election crimes, just like he said it would. His press conference was a “mission accomplished” moment for the governor’s “election integrity” campaign.

Or so it seemed at the time. In October, a Miami judge tossed out a criminal case against Robert Lee Wood, a Floridian accused by DeSantis’ election fraud force. In November, prosecutors in Tampa dropped the case against another defendant, Tony Patterson. In December, a judge threw out a third case, this time against Ronald Lee Miller, and then a fourth, against Terry Hubbard.

In November, the governor’s operation did accept a plea from another one of the defendants, Romona Oliver, and a local prosecutor boasted soon after that his office was pleased to secure a “felony conviction on illegal voting.”

That was a charitable spin on what transpired: The Tampa resident pleaded no contest and received no punishment whatsoever: no jail time, no probation and no financial penalties.

By any fair measure, these cases shouldn’t have even existed in the first place. Politico reported a week after the initial arrests that several of those taken away in handcuffs had been “notified by official government entities they were eligible to vote.”

Peter Washington, for example, after serving 10 years in prison, was told that he could vote after his release. After the Orange County Supervisor of Elections sent him a voter registration form, he completed the paperwork and was sent a voter card from local officials. Washington later cast what he thought to be a proper ballot — only to be arrested two years later.

He had plenty of company. In fact, the Tampa Bay Times highlighted Floridians who seemed utterly baffled as to why they were being taken away in handcuffs, insisting they had cast perfectly legal votes — not only because voters approved a state constitutional amendment in 2018, restoring voting rights to many felons, but also because they’d been told explicitly that they could legally cast ballots.

It led The Miami Herald to report in August that the cases are “on shaky legal ground.” It’s why, in most of the instances so far, the cases have failed. Don’t be surprised if there are similar outcomes as prosecutors continue to try the remaining defendants.

This post is a revised version of our related earlier coverage.