A Republican voter in Sumter County, Florida has been charged with forgery and fraud after officials caught him casting a vote on behalf of his dead father in the 2020 election.

The vote was not counted because the signatures didn’t match the father’s previous votes, but still — the effort was made.

But Robert Rivernider has a unique reason for committing the crime, apparently. He says it’s because of the local political rivalry between Trump supporters and supporters of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

While we hold in our laughter for a moment, let’s use that time to remember that DeSantis and Trump were not yet rivals in 2020, which should tell you whom of the two the genius Rivernider voted for.

But in case you’re still guessing, Rivernider is an ardent Trump supporter.

He says that the vote is NOT illegal and that the reason the charges are being filed so long after the 2020 election is that local officials in charge of elections in his county are DeSantis supporters. “There is a lot of politics that goes on here in Sumter County and they don’t like the fact that I don’t follow their system,” Rivernider said.

Bear in mind that voter fraud and forgery of a voter’s signature are extremely rare. Rivernider, however, lives near The Villages, where at least four other arrests on charges like this have been made.

As governor, DeSantis and the Republican legislature created a legal framework for investigating election crimes more easily. There was no ostensible reason for it, since there was no previous evidence (nor is there now) of any kind of widespread voter fraud.

And it turns out that Rivernider is a felon who was not yet eligible to vote anyway, So not only was he illegally voting on behalf of his father, who died days before the 2020 election, but he was not eligible himself. He was convicted in federal court over a decade ago of putting together a $20 million real estate “flipping” scheme. He is still paying restitution in Connecticut, where he was convicted.

In Florida, felons must complete payment of all fines, restitution, and legal fees before they can even be considered for having their voting rights restored.