TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new election integrity bill into law on Monday.
Senate Bill 524, according to the governor’s office, “will strengthen election security measures by requiring voter rolls to be annually reviewed and updated, strengthening ID requirements, establishing the Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate election law violations, and increasing penalties for violations of election laws.”
The legislation I signed today will continue to make Florida a leader in election integrity by increasing penalties for ballot harvesting, expanding our ban on Zuckerbucks, and establishing an election integrity unit in state government to enforce our laws. pic.twitter.com/FPez9uf1gU
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 25, 2022
“Twenty years ago, nobody thought Florida was a prime example of how to conduct elections, but we have become a national leader by running the most secure elections in the country,” Governor Ron DeSantis said in a statement. “We need to do more to ensure our elections remain secure. We have ended ballot harvesting, stopped drop boxes and the mass mailing of ballots, and banned Zuckerbucks, and this bill will give us more resources to make sure bad actors are held accountable.”
“Zuckerbucks” are named after the more than $400 million Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife sent to key voting areas in 2020 under the guise of ensuring safe voting due to COVID and increasing voter participation.
The law outright prohibits election officials from accepting any private donations for “any type of expenses related to election administration” such as “voter education, voter outreach, voter or registration programs, or the cost of any litigation related to election administration.”
A report from economist William Doyle concluded that the money from the Zuckerberg-linked Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and The Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) “created a high-powered, concierge-like get-out-the-vote effort for Biden that took place inside the election system, rather than attempting to influence it from the outside.”
“We call this the injection of structural bias into the 2020 election, and our analysis shows it likely generated enough additional votes for Biden to secure an Electoral College victory in 2020,” William Doyle wrote.
READ: Mark Zuckerberg ‘bought’ 2020 election for Biden with ‘staggering’ funding, new analysis suggests
DeSantis’ office said in its news release that the law tasks the Florida Department of State with making recommendations for how to strengthen voter ID requirements.
The new election integrity office fulfills a promise Gov. DeSantis made in January of this year.
“To ensure that elections are conducted in accordance with the rule of law, I have proposed an election integrity unit whose sole focus will be the enforcement of Florida’s election laws,” he said during his State of the State address. “This will facilitate the faithful enforcement of election laws and will provide Floridians with the confidence that their vote will count.”