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In the 2020 presidential election, more Floridians than ever voted by mail. Now Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to make postal voting more difficult.
At a Palm Beach press conference on Friday, DeSantis, a Republican, announced a proposed list of new voting restrictions that would make it more difficult for voters to receive and return ballots by mail in future elections. in Florida.
In doing so, he joined a wave of local and state officials who worked in the months following the 2020 general election to introduce new voting restrictions, arguing that these policies would make voting safer.
Specifically, DeSantis called on the Florida legislature to address the issue of “ballot collection” (when mail-in ballots are collected for delivery to a drop-off location) and ballot boxes, d ” prohibit the sending of ballot papers to voters who have not requested one, and tighten the rules on requesting a ballot so that requests are made each election year.
Currently, a mail-in vote request is valid for two general election cycles, according to the Florida ACLU; The change proposed by DeSantis would mean voters must do so more frequently, which could increase logistical barriers to voting by mail.
DeSantis also praised Florida’s voting system in his speech, saying the state had the most transparent and efficient election in the country, and pointing out that Florida – which replaced former President Donald Trump in November – counted ballots much faster than some. States. But he said the new measures are necessary to ensure electoral integrity.
“We have to make sure that we continue to stay one step ahead,” DeSantis said on Friday. “We need to make sure our citizens have confidence in the elections.”
However, it is not clear whether the proposed changes, if passed into law, would contribute much to these goals.
Many of the policies DeSantis proposed are essentially already in place in its state: Florida does not currently allow mass mailing of unsolicited mail-in ballots, and the state also has substantial restrictions on the “harvesting of mailings”. newsletters ”already in place, which DeSantis admitted in his speech.
“We are not a large state that collects the ballots,” he said. “But whatever type of loopholes, or any type of room where it might be abused, we want to make sure we fix it.”
Trump has once called the ballot crop “fraudulent,” which it is not, and the practice is a frequent Republican hobbyhorse. According to NPR, however, Trump himself had his Florida mail-order ballot submitted by a third party in 2020.
DeSantis also suggested on Friday that Florida may need to find ways to tighten up its existing signature matching law, which requires that the signature on a mail ballot or mail ballot match the signature on the voter already registered.
“If there is to be ways to strengthen signature verification,” DeSantis said, “then we have to do that as well.”
Signature verification laws, however, can be problematic: Signature mismatches can be very subjective, as Atlantic’s David Graham reported last year, and voters of color, among other demographics. , often see their ballots rejected at a much higher rate than white voters.
“Fraud is extremely rare,” Graham points out. “The much greater danger is that legitimate ballots will be rejected.”
Overall, the 2020 Florida election – like elections held by every other state – passed without unusual irregularities or sweeping fraud; it is not known how DeSantis’ proposals would improve the current system.
It is clear, however, that they fit neatly into a national trend in the aftermath of the 2020 election cycle: after losing control not only of the Presidency, but of the Senate, Republicans across the country are working to make voting more difficult.
The Republican solution to losing an election is to make it harder to vote
In the months following the presidential election, Republican state legislatures relied on Trump’s baseless rhetoric of voter fraud and moved swiftly to impose new voting restrictions.
Specifically, according to a February report from the Brennan Center for Justice, “Thirty-three states introduced, pre-filed or postponed more than 165 restrictive bills this year (up from 35 such bills in fifteen states on the 3rd February 2020). ”
Some of these bills, like a measure in Georgia that would end early voting on Sundays, shamelessly target black voters, who have played a major role in Democrats’ claim for control of the Senate. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explained on Friday, the change “would deal a blow to the black churches that host Sunday’s Souls to the Polls vote exit events, in which parishioners are transported by church leaders. the church to the polling stations. after services.
Others, like a Republican-backed bill in Arizona that would require all mail-in ballots to be notarized, would make it more difficult for anyone to vote by mail.
Many states where Republicans are imposing new electoral restrictions, including Arizona and Georgia, will be the venues for competitive Senate races in 2022.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly will seek a full six-year term in 2022 after winning a special election in 2020, as will Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, who won his seat in a run-off election. specials in January of this year.
And Republicans will defend seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa – the three states where Republicans have decided to implement new electoral restrictions – as well as Florida, where Senator Marco Rubio will be re-elected.
Despite the wave of new bills, however, it is uncertain whether Republicans will succeed in pushing through new electoral restrictions. In some states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Democratic governors could veto such changes.
And even in Georgia, where Republicans control the governor’s mansion as well as the legislature, an unnamed Republican strategist told the Washington Post that such measures could backfire. “A lot of Republicans still want to do things like this, but it’s not brilliant,” he said. “It just gives Democrats a baseball bat to fight with.”
Nationally, Democrats also have their own plan to expand voting rights and protect voters: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which is named after the late civil rights activist who represented a Georgia district in the House until ‘when he died last year.
According to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the bill would restore important parts of the voting rights law of 1965 – parts of which were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013 – in order to “protect the right to vote of all Americans. . “
There’s also the For The People Act, which was reintroduced on the first day of the new Congress in 2021. If passed, the bill would expand advance and mail-in voting, make it easier to register to vote and end it. to supporters gerrymandering, among other changes.
“You know our job is far from over,” Lewis mentionned in 2019. “It makes me sad. It makes me want to cry when people are denied the right to vote. We all know it’s not a Democratic or Republican question: it’s an American question. “
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