And they’ve tapped Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley to serve on the advisory board for the newly created Election Official Legal Defense Network.
The nonprofit is co-chaired by Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican attorney who represented President George W. Bush’s campaign during the 2000 recount, and Bob Bauer, a longtime Democratic attorney who served as White House counsel under former President Barack Obama. The group was founded in collaboration with the Center for Election Innovation & Research and its executive director, David Beckett.
“It’s almost sad and unfortunate that we have to be talking about this. You know, odd-numbered years are usually pretty low-key elections. It’s like last November just continues, sort of like Groundhog Day,” Corley told reporters Wednesday during a Zoom call to announce the group.
Corley said he was hit with death threats, and dozens of racial slurs were lobbed at his workers following last year’s presidential election, despite Florida’s smooth election.
A group of protesters showed up at the home where Corley previously lived with his ex-wife and son, who were still residing at the house, he said. He received death threats on social media. The Pasco supervisor said he had to enlist the aid of local and federal law enforcement.
“The fact that an election administrator has to deal with the FBI Joint Task Force on Domestic Terrorism, if that’s not troubling and (doesn’t) shock individuals to their core, certainly nothing will,” Corley said.
But what’s coming might be worse, Corley and others involved in the new group fear.
“The hostility and the tone of those reaching out to our offices is palpable,” Corley said.
Florida is among dozens of states that have enacted new elections laws that, among other things, make it more difficult to vote by mail. Florida’s law is the subject of at least four pending federal lawsuits.
The new laws, in part, are what prompted the creation of the legal defense network, its leaders said.
“We are really concerned about this potentially harming the administration of elections, and for voters to start wondering about the impartiality of the administration of elections,” Ginsberg said. “It’s a huge problem.”
The Florida law, approved by GOP legislators this spring, also includes a requirement that election workers staff “drop boxes,” where voters can submit mail-in ballots, at all times. Supervisors who violate the requirement face $25,000 fines.
“The net effect for my colleagues and I in Florida is going to be, in a state where we’re all about fiscal responsibility, doubling up on those resources. That’s taxpayer money. I’m not going to risk having someone snap a photo because one of my co-workers had a potty emergency,” Corley said. “So the net effect is going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars additional cost to taxpayers. For what? It’s … No words.”
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This article appears in Sep 9-15, 2021.