RULE BENDING

DeSantis Finally Gets a Win in Shoddy Voter Fraud Blitz Thanks to New Law

Byron Leonard Smith, who indicated in body-cam footage that he didn’t mean to vote illegally, was given six months of probation on Thursday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who championed a shaky “voter fraud crackdown” last summer that cost taxpayers millions but secured just a handful of arrests, finally has a conviction to celebrate—largely thanks to a new law passed at his behest. Byron Leonard Smith was convicted Thursday and sentenced to six months of probation for voting illegally in the 2020 election, Florida Politics reports. He’ll also have to pay $560 in court fees. Smith’s conviction was secured after the Florida legislature passed a new law in a special session that gave a statewide prosecutor the authority to handle election-related cases—just months after other voter fraud cases were thrown out by South Florida judges due to jurisdictional issues. Smith, like the others arrested last August, was visibly emotional in body-camera footage of his arrest as he explained that he had no clue he was ineligible to vote when he registered in 2019.