BELLE GLADE, Fla. — When Leo Grant Jr. cast his ballot in the 2020 election, it was the first time the 53-year-old had ever voted — an act that made him feel like he was setting a good example for his three sons and fulfilling his role as a citizen.
But in August, three Florida officers showed up at his home near Lake Okeechobee in Palm Beach County as he was about to go bass fishing with a friend. They had handguns tucked into holsters strapped to their jeans and carried shackles.
Grant had committed a grave offense, they said: election fraud. He’d voted despite a sexual offense conviction two decades earlier in 1999. They placed handcuffs around his wrists and drove him to jail.
“I’ve been a good father and I follow the law,” he thought. “I do good for the community. And here they come to my house and pick me up for voting?”
Grant, a high-ranking officer in his local Freemasonry chapter, is one of 20 individuals — most of whom are Black — charged by an elections police force created by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to pursue allegations of election fraud and improper voting. Those arrested are all accused of voting in violation of a state law that forbids those convicted or murder or felony sexual offenses from casting ballots.
Yet, in the days that followed DeSantis’s campaign-style event to announce those arrests, cracks have begun to emerge in the state’s case amid intensifying questions about whether the governor and his election police unit have weaponized their new powers...
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