by Alice Herman | Suncoast Searchlight<\/p>\n
The mood was grim on Defend Florida\u2019s mid-November Zoom call.<\/p>\n
Members of the Sarasota-founded election conspiracy theory group traded frustrations over Florida Republicans who no longer seemed interested in their proposals to tighten Florida\u2019s voting rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting heavy resistance,\u201d said Deborah Monks, a volunteer member, during the call.<\/p>\n
It was a far cry from their rise in the years after the 2020 election, when Defend Florida had cultivated relationships with Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 office, meeting regularly with his staff while they created Florida\u2019s controversial Office of Election Crimes and Security. But its influence in Tallahassee has faded: Republican lawmakers have pushed the group aside, calling its brand tarnished.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess that’s the definition of losing political clout,\u201d committee chair Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, told Suncoast Searchlight after the meeting. \u201cIn politics, winners win, and losers lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a phenomenon that Defend Florida members have begun referring to as the \u201cbrick wall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But while its clout in Tallahassee has faded, the group itself has not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even as local lawmakers distance themselves, Defend Florida and the loose network of influencers and content creators surrounding it have sought to expand their grassroots influence. They have transformed from a state-focused pressure group into a national effort coordinating with activists questioning election security across the U.S. Their leadership has routinely hosted calls drawing tens of thousands of listeners and featuring high-profile election deniers, such as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the recently pardoned Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.<\/p>\n
The message political operators like these spread \u2014 that elections are corrupt \u2014 still threatens public trust, election officials warn.<\/p>\n
Misinformation and disinformation remain \u201ca major problem,\u201d said Wendy Sartory Link, president of the nonpartisan Florida Supervisors of Elections (FSE) and the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections. \u201cMisinformation is generally juicier, so it spreads faster than the truth. And what that does is then leaves voters very confused, then they get discouraged about participating.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, which works closely with election officials across the country, warned that the problem could escalate ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDisinformation is incredibly resilient,\u201d said Becker. \u201cPart of the reason for that is there are some very powerful amplifiers of election lies, including the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
This helps explain where these activists are now placing their bets. President Donald Trump\u2019s false claims about fraudulent voting<\/a> during and after the 2020 election helped launch groups like their own, and its members hope he can resurrect their relevance \u2014 even as he publicly has praised Florida’s elections as secure.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully we can get engagement from the president\u2019s team,\u201d said Monks, referring to the Trump administration. \u201cOtherwise, we\u2019re dead in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n Stopping the Steal<\/p>\n Founded in 2021 by a pair of Trump supporters based in Sarasota and Manatee counties \u2014 Raj Doraisamy and Caroline Wetherington \u2014 Defend Florida was born in heady days for the far right on the Suncoast.<\/p>\n \u201cMedical freedom\u201d activists who advocated disproven COVID-19 treatments like the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were gearing up to mount campaigns to seize seats on the elected Sarasota Memorial Hospital board, and Proud Boys-aligned organizers were helping flip control of the Sarasota School Board to conservatives. A private hangout in south Sarasota called \u201cThe Hollow\u201d opened its doors, and gun range, to right-wing activists \u2014 with Trump\u2019s former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn establishing himself as a regular presence there.<\/p>\n Doraisamy, a Sarasota County MAGA fan, elevated his profile with connections to political operators like Roger Stone. Wetherington, who ran a statewide group called Women for Trump, had already raised a volunteer army<\/a> once. Together, they started Defend Florida, which Doraisamy said is neither a nonprofit nor a business \u2014 but \u201ca website and a movement.\u201d<\/p>\n For individuals who sought to overturn the 2020 election or sincerely believed Trump\u2019s false claims of a stolen election, the group became an organizing hub.\u00a0<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t matter that voter fraud is exceptionally rare, or that efforts to unearth and prosecute such cases have yielded few results. An Associated Press review of <\/a>the swing states after the 2020 election found fewer than 500 potentially fraudulent ballots cast \u2014 most of which were not even counted.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cVoter fraud is actually infinitesimal in the United States,\u201d said Vilia Johnson, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Sarasota County. \u201cSo the whole conversation is a distraction, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, that conversation grabbed the attention of one of the most powerful men in the state as he was gearing up for a 2024 presidential run.\u00a0<\/p>\n DeSantis walked a shaky tightrope on the topic at the time, both affirming Florida\u2019s election process<\/a> but publicly floating the idea<\/a> that swing state legislators could maneuver to change the national election outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March 2022, his office invited Defend Florida activists<\/a> into the fold, taking numerous meetings with the group while crafting the state\u2019s controversial Office of Election Crimes and Security, a new law enforcement program seeking to investigate and prosecute voter fraud.\u00a0<\/p>\n Emails between DeSantis\u2019 office and Defend Florida activists suggested a warm relationship: \u201cWe are so thankful for the passage of SB 524. Many of our members volunteered hundreds of hours to provide the data supporting the need for this legislation,\u201d wrote a Defend Florida volunteer in a contemporaneous email exchange with the governor\u2019s former director of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs that was obtained by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.<\/p>\n But when the new office launched its first high-profile crackdown in August 2022 \u2014 detaining 19 people who voted despite disqualifying felony convictions \u2014 the cases revealed confusion, not a conspiracy. Many of those arrested believed they were eligible under a constitutional amendment<\/a> that restored voting rights to people with felony convictions who had completed their sentences.\u00a0<\/p>\n The arrests stoked fear among voters<\/a> \u2014 but it did not unearth a pattern of fraud.\u00a0<\/p>\n The \u201cbrick wall\u201d<\/p>\n The landscape that catapulted Defend Florida into relevance has shifted since Trump\u2019s decisive 2024 presidential victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSince I’ve been involved, the climate has gotten more and more limited,\u201d said Monks, the Defend Florida volunteer, describing her efforts to persuade state legislators to adopt restrictive voting measures this year on a call with Suncoast Searchlight. \u201cThe brick wall has gotten thicker.\u201d<\/p>\n During a series of Zoom meetings, volunteers with Defend Florida bemoaned Republican officials they saw as uninterested in their claims about election security. The group had sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd in early November, requesting his support for, among other measures, legislation restricting mail voting and adding citizenship status markers to Florida driver\u2019s licenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n The activists said he did not write back. Suncoast Searchlight reached out to Byrd\u2019s office for comment but did not receive one by publication.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re having a hard time getting in front of legislators,\u201d said Doraisamy, during a recent Defend Florida call.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even when members do get the ear of lawmakers, the response is muted. At a Nov. 19 meeting of the state Senate committee on Ethics and Elections in Tallahassee, Defend Florida activists sat quietly in the back of the room as election officials chatted and joked with lawmakers while presenting proposals to help streamline the state\u2019s election processes, according to a recorded video of the meeting.<\/p>\n Representatives of the Florida Supervisors of Elections requested that the state\u2019s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) automatically update election officials on changes to driver\u2019s licenses; that the legislature clarify whether voting on a petition counts as voter \u201cactivity\u201d; and that the legislature impose increased penalties for tampering with voting equipment by classifying election equipment as critical infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n They also sought to expand access to mail-in voting by reinstating voters\u2019 ability to check a box and opt in to vote by mail in the next election. The Republican-controlled state legislature shot down a similar proposal earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tacked onto the end of the committee meeting, four Defend Florida volunteers lined up to speak. They asked the legislators to require hand-counted audits of elections and adopt policies that Trump has promoted, including requiring passports or birth certificates to register to vote. None of the lawmakers assembled asked follow-up questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the meeting, Gaetz also took a moment to laud Florida\u2019s election system, noting that Trump had himself<\/a> vouched for voting in Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cApparently, there\u2019s nothing wrong with voting in Florida if the president of the United States, who is very critical of voting practices elsewhere, voted and said it worked out well,\u201d said Gaetz. \u201cThat should be a good message for all of those who wring their hands about voting in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that Florida lawmakers have ignored the widespread anxieties about election security. Since 2020, they have passed a series of laws that election skeptics had advocated for \u2014 including a measure to deactivate vote-by-mail requests<\/a> immediately after an election rather than letting voters opt in for an additional election.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state also withdrew<\/a> from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national database that helps track voters who have moved out of the state where they are registered to vote, and which became a target for election skeptics.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI do think the decision to pull out of the ERIC database is an example of a policy change stemming from disinformation which actually made Florida’s voting system less secure than it previously was,\u201d wrote Jessica Lowe-Minor, the president of League of Women Voters of Florida, in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n But even Gaetz, who earlier this year helped pass<\/a> a measure imposing restrictions on the petition process to introduce citizen-led ballot measures, said the drumbeat of conspiracy theories from Defend Florida activists had cost the group politically.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want me to vote for or against a piece of legislation based on your argument, it has to be evidence based,\u201d said Gaetz. \u201cThere’s some people who have theories or arguments about Florida elections that don’t come with evidence. They come with opinion, and they come with volume, but they don’t come with evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have Russ Vought\u2019s phone number?\u201d<\/p>\n Even as their influence wanes in Tallahassee, election skeptics see signs from Washington that Trump still has their backs.<\/p>\n Those signals include the president\u2019s recent appointment<\/a> of a high-profile conspiracy theorist \u2014 one who has promoted false claims about election security \u2014 to a role overseeing elections for the Department of Homeland Security. Closer to home, staffers from the Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Russell Vought, the powerful director<\/a> of the Office of Management and Budget, appear at Defend Florida events.<\/p>\n During a Venice gathering hosted by Defend Florida in July, Vought\u2019s group handed out literature alongside the right-wing Christian organization Citizens Defending Freedom.<\/p>\n On an October Zoom call hosted by Defend Florida, one participant put out an ambitious message to the Center for Renewing staffer on the call.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have Russ Vought’s telephone number?\u201d she wrote in the Zoom chat, which was published online and reviewed by Suncoast Searchlight. \u201cI need to get in touch with him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n No one responded to the inquiry.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it illustrated how election-doubting activists, including those in Doraisamy\u2019s group, view the Trump administration as a close and natural ally. Members of the organization have also claimed, publicly and during their Zoom meetings, to have worked with members of Trump\u2019s executive order team.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond working with Congress to pass a law, the president has no power to personally change election policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Becker, the director of The Center for Election Innovation and Research, said he worries about how Trump\u2019s administration could pressure states to change their processes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we get to the point where Washington is trying to dictate [elections policy] to everybody, we\u2019ve got a real problem,\u201d said Becker, pointing to how the state of Ohio changed its vote-by-mail policy<\/a> after the Department of Justice threatened legal action. \u201cEspecially when it\u2019s very clear the White House doesn’t understand how elections are run in the United States.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And election deniers are seeking to push the White House to take up such interventions. On a late October call that Doraisamy hosted, that conviction was on full display.<\/p>\n Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, joined the call and told the more than 20,000 viewers who tuned in on Rumble that grassroots election skeptics could sway Trump.<\/p>\n During the same call, Tarrio urged for the release from prison of Tina Peters, a former Colorado election clerk who was convicted and sentenced to nine years for overseeing a data breach while she was searching for voter fraud \u2014 a repeated refrain that election-denying activists have rallied around for months.<\/p>\n Within weeks, the federal Bureau of Prisons requested the Colorado Department of Corrections transfer Peters to state custody, setting up a standoff<\/a> between Trump and the state of Colorado.<\/p>\n \u201cI think,\u201d said Tarrio, \u201cthe administration is on our side.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n