Twenty people in Florida have been charged with voter fraud, state officials said on Thursday.
As of Thursday afternoon, 12 of the 20 people charged had been arrested, state officials said at a news conference in Lake Worth Beach, Fla. Most cases involved noncitizens who registered to vote, attesting that they were U.S. citizens, the officials said.
In announcing the arrests, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, suggested that his state had done more to ensure the integrity of elections than Democratic-led ones such as California ahead of the midterms.
Mr. DeSantis made election security a priority after President Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr., in 2020; Mr. Trump has fumed about the loss ever since, falsely claiming that the result was rigged and casting doubt on the integrity of states’ election systems. Experts have said that voter fraud is not widespread.
In 2022, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature created the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which that year trumpeted 20 arrests for voter fraud. Some of those arrested were former felons who mistakenly believed their right to vote had been restored and had received registration cards through the state.
Earlier this year, Mr. DeSantis signed into a law requiring people show proof of U.S. citizenship when they registered to vote. Mr. Trump, who claims that there is a widespread problem with noncitizens voting, has pushed a similar federal bill to no avail.
At the news conference, officials highlighted the case of Cyntia Canales, of Ocala, Fla., who was arrested earlier this month by state agents. She is a legal U.S. resident originally from Chile. Her defense lawyer blamed Ms. Canales’s unfamiliarity with the election system. Ms. Canales, 62, who is not a citizen, registered to vote in Florida in 2012.
“She had voted all this time and it was never an issue,” the lawyer, Julia Slaughter, said. “She was shocked she was charged.”
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