Jacob Ogles
A significant amendment to an election law overhaul (SB 90) will be heard Tuesday on the House floor.
Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican, filed a strike-all measure at 1:33 a.m., hours after the Senate passed the bill.
There’s no staff analysis available yet on the impact of Ingoglia’s amendment, and he declined to speak to the media on the substance ahead of presenting changes on the floor.
“I should answer questions from other members before the press,” he said.
A look at the amendment shows many of the changes are substantive. It adds requirements for real-time reporting on voter turnout, for example.
There are a number of significant differences from the Senate bill. Ingoglia’s amendment leaves in Florida’s resign to run law.
A ban on outside dollars being used by election supervisors, sometimes called “Zuckerbucks” after the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life last year issued grants to elections offices nationwide, will be in the amended bill.
So too will a new requirement for ID when returning a vote-by-mail ballot to a dropbox. But the language does allow for elections offices to hold extended hours for dropbox access.
The amendment keeps stringent observation requirements of signature matching and ballot duplication, the latter of which must be done under the watch of a canvassing board member.
The Senate bill, carried by Sen. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, addresses the use of drop boxes for ballot collection and other issues regarding vote-by-mail, such as signature verification. The move came after the first election cycle in memory when more Democrats voted by mail than Republicans.
That bill passed with only Republican support on Monday.
Of note, Ingoglia’s strike-all amendment will be the most substantive heard on the floor, but Democrats in the House have filed a whopping 22 amendments of their own that are also scheduled for debate.
The bill goes to the floor today on second reading, marking the last time it can be changed without waiving standard rules.
But if amended, it will still need to return to the Senate for another vote presuming the new language passes in the House.
