Anne Geggis
Six months since prior vote-by-mail requests expired, just a fraction of voters have renewed their absentee request, arousing fear that millions of Floridians could discover too late that their ballot is not arriving in the mail.
It’s an unprecedented situation — and a race against the clock — brought on by the first piece of post-2020 election legislation passed that changed election rules. The 2021 law (SB 90) calls for all vote-by-mail requests to expire on Jan. 1 after each General Election. Before, voters need only check a box on the ballot to be registered to vote absentee in the next election.
Supervisors of Elections have never been starting at zero for absentee ballot requests before. And it’s got voting advocates worried about those people who are accustomed to the mailed-in reminder that it’s time to vote. The new laws make it so that Supervisors of Elections purge their mail-in ballot requests every Jan. 1 after a General Election.
“This is a huge, big deal and very intentional,” said Cecile Scoon, Co-President of the League of Women Voters of Florida. “The new legislation has been consistently making it more difficult to vote and this is just one of many ways.”
In Broward County, 36,274 voters are signed up to receive their ballots by mail, compared to the 420,885 requests they had on file before the law meant their expiration. In Palm Beach County, about 90,000 have absentee ballot requests on file, compared to more than 353,000 requests that went out for the 2022 General Election.
In Leon County, the outreach proportionally, has proven more successful. About 26,000 voters have signed up since about 64,000 vote-by-mail requests expired, according to Alex Mosca, spokesman for the Leon County Supervisor of Elections.
Promulgators of the legislation called the law a way to increase the transparency of voting and stop ballot harvesting, in which a third party collects completed mail-in ballots and drops them off.
“Florida took action this Legislative Session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time he signed the legislation, in a prepared statement. “Floridians can rest assured that our state will remain a leader in ballot integrity.”
In the larger counties, it’s been an uphill climb to get the numbers of mail-in voters back to where they were.
“People are not aware the Republican Legislature sunsetted their vote-by-mail registration,” said Laurie Plotnick, President of the Broward Democratic Senior Caucus and the state Florida Democratic Senior Caucus.
Plotnick estimates that, since June, its volunteers have texted 250,000 people a link to the Supervisor of Elections form to renew their vote-by-mail request. The majority of Broward County’s votes come in by that method.
Another hurdle is that SB 90 raised the threshold for providing proof of identification to receive a mail-in ballot. It requires voters to put either a license number or Social Security digits on the request to complete a mail-in ballot request.
Professor Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political science professor, said it’s going to exclude people who don’t have these IDs, people who have concerns about writing personal identifying information on a form, and those whose Social Security numbers have been compromised.
He predicts overall voter participation is going to drop. The levels seen voting in this year’s municipal elections already showed that, he said. Smith was an expert witness for the case against SB 90 that was heard at the Federal Appeals court in Atlanta. The court reversed a lower court’s ruling against the law in April.
“Some people can’t even provide that information,” Smith said of the new requirements. “We’re going to see this come to a head in the Primary Election in 2024. There’s no question about it.”
Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller, who served as state Senator, said that he remembers when Republicans wanted to make absentee voting more widely available because absentee voters were more likely Republicans.
The next major vote will be for the Presidential Primary on March 19, and that means that vote-by-mail requests must be in before Feb. 6.
21 comments
tom palmer
July 8, 2023 at 8:04 am
Another explanation is that now that the pandemic has passed. people feel less of a need to vote absentee. The election is not until next year, so this may be premature.
Ocean Joe
July 8, 2023 at 10:31 am
Disagree. See Michael K’s comment below. It was designed to suppress voting by minorities and that’s exactly what it will do.
Thick Stick
July 8, 2023 at 11:06 am
Ocean Joe, pull your head out, bro. Minorities do not vote absentee as do their White counterparts. The law does not say that absentee requests for peeps of color shall expire, it says all requests expire and have to be re-requested each election.
It is colorblind, a concept that mental midgets (little people) cannot grasp. You. Are. Wrong. Again.
Dont Say FLA
July 11, 2023 at 8:22 am
TS (Fake TS not real TS), every change in voter registration rules is meant to discourage minority voting. There’s no other reason to change voter law other than trying to exclude some folks from this round of voting because they were caught unawares. Who gets caught unawares? Folks working 3 terrible jobs while tending to some terrible children, that’s who. Can we call them minorities? I dunno. We can definitely call these folks “too busy to learn prior to voting day about voting rules changes” which makes them easily disenfranchised but just for one voting cycle which gives the disenfranchisers plausible deniability. “We ran the required notice in the local paper and we sent out the required notice via USPS along with our buddies sending three massive coupon/ad bundles for the notices to get lost in, but it’s not our fault if the junk mail goes right into the recycle bin and our legal notification got thrown out by a careless voter, now is it?”
Leonard
July 8, 2023 at 9:44 am
There is ZERO reason to conclude voter turnout will drop. If we truly care about the integrity of our voting system…we should make Election Day a holiday…use paper ballots…and use a finger print to make sure the person voting is who they say they are…The harvesting of mail in ballots has made a mockery of our election systems.
Wanda
July 8, 2023 at 1:06 pm
What about all the people who don’t have a fingerprint on file somewhere? Are they not allowed to vote?
Leonard
July 8, 2023 at 4:41 pm
Many countries use biometrics (either a finger print or iris scan) to make sure they have secure elections. You would provide your finger print when you register to vote…and please don’t tell me that is too difficult. These reforms are NOT designed to suppress votes—they are designed to maintain the integrity of the election process. No one should be voting for someone else…no one should be harvesting votes.
Dont Say FLA
July 11, 2023 at 8:24 am
The government would love to have all our fingerprints. For, um, whatever stated purpose, NEVER for anything else. That is what they said when they collected fingerprints for driving licenses. That requirement was eventually overturned, but did the fingerprint database get wiped? Ha. NO.
Jackie
July 8, 2023 at 10:12 am
Just vote straight Democrat and rid us of the Nazi republicans who are doing their best to destroy democracy and America
Culo11
July 10, 2023 at 12:21 pm
Leave Florida …we’re coming to get you….Love our DeSantis and anti freak grooming laws
Dont Say FLA
July 11, 2023 at 8:29 am
Could you define grooming for us please? What is grooming? What does a groomer want to accomplish? All i know is that grooming mean you shave, brush your teeth, pluck unsightly hairs, wash yourself etc. If that is grooming, and I understand that to be grooming, what is the problem with grooming? Does grooming mean something other than grooming when DeSantis says grooming? If so, why not use the clearer word(s) that don’t have other meanings? If, say, DeSantis is calling all political opponents child molesters, why doesn’t he just say that? Ron could say, “Disney CEO Bob Iger is a child molester.” See, it’s easy to be clear. Ron should “man up” and be clear with whatever he’s getting at. You can’t be bashful and be President, so Ron, quit bashing bashfully. Call folks child molesters if that is what you mean. Just do it, Ron. Do it.
Michael K
July 8, 2023 at 10:20 am
Voter suppression was the whole point – especially targeting minority communities.
Universal vote by mail is the way to go. It’s worth remembering that DeSantis won with only 54% of registered voters voting. That is pathetic and in-representative. We should aim for 90%.
Culo11
July 10, 2023 at 12:22 pm
yah…get out loser
Dont Say FLA
July 11, 2023 at 8:30 am
Bessie Mae, bless your heart!
Antonio
July 11, 2023 at 10:59 am
Absolutely not. Everyone capable can go down and vote in person. There are way too many holes in the chain of custody in mail-in voting. Absentee voting should only apply if you are going to be ABSENT in your district on election day. That is it.
PeterH
July 8, 2023 at 10:22 am
Republicans are America’s biggest problem!
Vote all Republicans out of office!
You can’t accomplish this simple task if you’re not registered to vote!
Culo11
July 10, 2023 at 12:22 pm
bye bye! go to a blue state and put on a drag queen show for the kids
tom palmer
July 8, 2023 at 10:03 pm
However, Peter H., it’s hard to vote Republicans out of office when no Democrats are running.
Dont Say FLA
July 11, 2023 at 8:32 am
This is true, but Rhonda is doing a great job in Florida with getting Democrats to run and also at getting them elected. I wonder if this is what’s going on in Iowa and New Hampshire (and everywhere else Ron goes) that reminds Ron of Florida? Are Democrats making a surging comeback in Iowa and New Hampshire like they are in Florida as a response to Ron?
Antonio
July 11, 2023 at 11:06 am
https://www.dos.myflorida.com/elections/data-statistics/voter-registration-statistics/voter-registration-reports/voter-registration-by-party-affiliation/
Where is this surging Democrat comeback? The Democrats have lost nearly 113,000 members just since last year.
SEllis
July 11, 2023 at 10:39 pm
In the 2020, 11 Million Floridians voted in the General Election. According to the State of Florida Division of Elections website, there were 262 Election Fraud Complaints received and only 75 cases were sent to law enforcement for prosecution. There are 67 counties in FL. DO THE MATH… and if you don’t know how I will tell you. 262 divided by 11,000,000 = 0.0000238. When you round up it still equals 0, which is the percentage of election fraud in Florida.
Vote these LIARS out!
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