In Voter Fraud, Penalties Often Depend on Who's Voting

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Mass voter fraud is a myth, but voter suppression is real.

People with low incomes, formerly incarcerated people, and people of color are more likely to face incredibly harsh consequences for violating voting laws — even when it’s an honest mistake.
Election workers in Riviera Beach, Fla., prepared ballots to be counted by machine after the November 2020 general election.
nytimes.com
In Voter Fraud, Penalties Often Depend on Who’s Voting
Cases in Florida and a survey of prosecutions nationally indicate that despite the furor over voter fraud, prosecutions remain exceedingly rare and penalties vary wildly.
9:38 AM · Sep 9, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/us/voter-fraud-penalties.html

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https://archive.ph/ioY8e

After 15 years of scrapes with the police, the last thing that 33-year-old Therris L. Conney needed was another run-in with the law. He got one anyway two years ago, after election officials held a presentation on voting rights for inmates of the county jail in Gainesville, Fla.

Apparently satisfied that he could vote, Mr. Conney registered after the session, and cast a ballot in 2020. In May, he was arrested for breaking a state law banning voting by people serving felony sentences — and he was sentenced to almost another full year in jail.

That show-no-mercy approach to voter fraud is what Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has encouraged this year during his re-election campaign. “That was against the law,” he said last month about charges against 20 other felons who voted in Florida, “and they’re going to pay a price for it.”

But many of those cases seem to already be falling apart, because, like Mr. Conney, the former felons did not intend to vote illegally. And the more typical kind of voter-fraud case in Florida has long exacted punishment at a steep discount.

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