A.G. Gancarski
In comments to ABC News Monday night, Sen. Rick Scott said he wasn’t sure if President Donald Trump‘s posture toward vote by mail hurt Florida’s operation.
But he hopes not.
The Senator, being interviewed by Tom Llamas as the Republican National Convention’s evening programming was set to begin, extolled the virtues of Florida’s VBM program, noting he won three times with it.
“I hope not, because we have mail-in ballots in Florida. It works. It’s worked and we’ve done it a long time. I’ve had three elections and we’ve clearly focused on it,” Scott said.
Scott’s comments are the latest endorsement of vote by mail by Florida Republicans, a rhetorical posture so pronounced that in his ritualized denunciations of the practice, President Trump has had to issue a ringing endorsement of Florida’s process.
“Absentee — like in Florida — absentee is good. But other than that, they’re very, very bad,” the President said Monday, as reported by the Associated Press.
Those comments followed on previous endorsements of Florida’s process, as reported by the News Service of Florida.
“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,” Trump tweeted earlier this month, as primary voting by mail was proceeding. “Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA.”
In the 2020 August primary, vote by mail was the predominate mode for voters … and Democrats won the day.
Almost three in five of the roughly 2.3 million votes cast were by mail, and Democrats cast more than Republicans and voters without party affiliations did combined.
Though President Trump has extolled the Florida system, his condemnations of the practice are likely to be more remembered, with provocative tweets continuing to stand out.
One comment
Ocean Joe
August 25, 2020 at 10:47 am
Trump has done the country a favor. Like his support for the confederate flag which resulted in it’s disappearance from NASCAR, his wild claims of election fraud and trouble with voting by mail have also backfired, and led to emergency funding of the post office, extra scrutiny on the voting process as a whole and validation through the primary that vote by mail works, as it has in Florida for quite awhile. He can still veto the funding, but at least everyone is on notice to mail their ballots early or to drop them off at the local elections office.
Scott has also done the country a favor by replacing Snipes with Peter Antonacci as interim Broward supervisor of elections. The vote counting went well there. Now Scott should do us one more favor: resign.
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