Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proposed the idea last year and said the force would consist of 25 investigators and officers.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and fellow Republicans are proposing a special police force to investigate election fraud, but some are worried that the new force could target minorities and cause unnecessary complications, CBS News reported.
"Why should you make voting harder?" Cecile Scoon, who runs Florida's nonpartisan League of Women Voters, told CBS News. "Bringing law enforcement and having them be around looking for problems... There is a concern and there's the fear and there's that chilling factor that they're going to target Black people.”
DeSantis proposed the idea last year and said the police force would consist of 25 investigators and officers, and that the initiative would “provide Floridians with the confidence that their vote will matter.”
"We're very confident that we hit a great intersection between making voting accessible and keeping voting secure,” said Florida's Republican Secretary of State Laurel Lee, who oversees elections.
After the 2020 election, unfounded conspiracies about voter fraud spread after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that voting by mail was rife with fraud and corruption. Studies have shown that instances of voter fraud are extremely rare, and usually occur in local elections due to human error.
Democrats in Florida have been highly opposed to the idea of the new police force.
"I think we should be afraid of a political election police goon squad," State Senator Tina Scott Polsky said during a Senate meeting.
Nine months ago, DeSantis also signed a law limiting the use of ballot drop boxes. That law is now being challenged in federal court.
