A Republican state attorney in Florida chose not to pursue cases against six convicted sex offenders who voted in a majority GOP county in the 2020 election, according to a report, despite the cases being similar to those subsequently brought against ex-felons by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ election police. The office of State Attorney Bill Gladson confirmed in a May 2022 letter obtained by the Orlando Sentinel that the six offenders voted in Lake County—but that they couldn’t be prosecuted because their fraud wasn’t willful after they were “mistakenly given voter registration cards.” The decision not to prosecute the men came mere months before 20 ex-felons living in majority Democrat counties were quickly jailed after being arrested by DeSantis’ new election police force, the Office of Election Crimes and Security. Each of the 20 had also voted, but they too had received voter ID cards. Roger Weeden, a lawyer representing two of the people arrested by DeSantis’ election police, said he was “offended” by the discrepancy, which looked like sex offenders in Lake County were let off while those in blue counties weren’t. “The people are similarly situated, and there is no factual way to differentiate between the cases and yet some people are being prosecuted under the same factual scenario and others are not,” he added.
