“The View” panel raged over the arrests of more than a dozen Floridians accused of voter fraud following an investigation under Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.
Police bodycam footage recently showed the arrest of Tony Patterson outside his Tampa home on allegations of voter fraud, the Tampa Bay Times reported. State police arrested and charged 20 convicted murderers and sex offenders on Aug. 18, who the governor said were “not eligible” to vote following an investigation by DeSantis’ Office of Election Crimes and Security.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg accused DeSantis of “setting these people up” to be part of his voter fraud investigation and claimed that it is not written anywhere that convicted felons cannot vote.
“What are you doing, man? Why are you allowing this? This is your problem,” Goldberg said. “You set these people up to be part of this voter fraud thing that you keep looking for. And you set these people up. What are you doing? Why is this, it didn’t used to be you didn’t have to be concerned about voting.”
Co-host Joy Behar then claimed the Republican Party is fabricating voter fraud issues because they “have to cheat” in order to win, so Florida allowed these people to vote without informing them they were ineligible. (RELATED: ‘The View’ Tried To Bring On DeSantis For A Guest Appearance. Here’s How His Press Team Responded)
“This is what they’re up to now, the Republican Party,” Behar said. “Because they can’t win, and they know they can’t win because the demographics are changing and the future is not the Republican Party, so they have to cheat. So first they say there’s voter fraud all over the place which we know is not true…but they don’t care about that. Then you set up a situation where you tell people lies like these people were told that they could vote when they actually could not.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin argued that Florida passed a resolution to allow convicted felons to vote. In November 2018, Florida voters passed Amendment 4, which restores the right to vote for felons who served their time, but excludes those convicted of murder or sex offenses.
Attorney Mark Rankin alleged that canvassers told his client, Ramona Oliver, who was among the 20 arrested, that she was eligible to register and vote, CNN reported. She then received a card in the mail with her updated voter registration.
In response, co-host Sara Haines said this approach is being “soft on crime” for targeting these people rather than fighting real crime. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin added that DeSantis is trying to manipulate the liberal media into defending violent criminals.
“Ron DeSantis is trying to bait the media, the liberal media, into coming out and defending violent offenders and murderers who tried to illegally vote. This is a set up. This is what he does, he knows how to drive news attention, he wants to say of course murderers should be able to vote. There’s a very real discussion to be had…let’s be honest, if he cared about addressing voter fraud, there’s a certain Florida resident who’s guilty of trying to defraud 81 million people of their votes. Donald Trump.”
Hostin accused DeSantis of racially targeting the voters because six elderly people who also allegedly committed voter fraud were supposedly not arrested. It appears that she was referring to the six arrested in Hillsborough County, who were among the 20 arrested. Of the 20 arrested, 12 were registered Democrats and 13 were black, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“This is double trauma, so somebody serves their time, they get out, and you come along and you say ‘oh, you’ve voted fraudulently, so I’m arresting you,'” Goldberg added. “Not like, let’s see what this is about, I’m taking you in. Ron DeSantis, shame on you! Shame, shame, shame, shame on you.”