The "new sheriff" in town

Hundreds of thousands of Florida voters had their requests for mail-in ballots cancelled last month, a consequence of a new law championed by Ron DeSantis pursuant to a law that took effect 31 Dec 2022.

The change is part of a suite of new restrictions on voting by mail – including new identification requirements and ballot drop box limits - Republicans passed after the 2020 election. Previously, Florida voters could elect to automatically receive a mail-in ballot for every election for up to four years. The new measure cancelled nearly all of the standing requests on file at the end of 2022. Voters can also now only request to automatically receive a mail-in ballot for up to two years.

The change has meant a huge drop in the number of people who are signed up to automatically receive a mail-in ballot. Local election officials have been working to get people to renew their requests by contacting them directly and by promoting the change on their websites. But in the first month since the reset, relatively few people have renewed their requests.

And why is this an issue here? One, there’s no relevant instance of voter fraud in this state. And the notices of required renewal hit three counties initially: Orange, Broward and Miami-Dade, all blue strongholds in the state. The rollout has been silent, the flyer a one page cardstock with so much flash on the front it’s hard to make out anything. As a result, relatively few people have renewed their requests to mail-in voter ballots.

And because no one can be trusted, no longer are there electronic monitors for drop boxes; these will be manned and as such will have fewer locations and shorter hours. Guess which areas this will happen in.

And if you were thinking about dropping on your office’s ballots, or those for your family or friends or neighbors…only two additional ballots of direct family members may be deposited with the holder’s own ballot.

Lastly is the required government ID requirement, which I support, except that it’ll make no dent because there simply aren’t hordes of immigrants running to the polls. They don’t even like being seen at the grocery store.

Florida – getting’ freer every day.

[i]source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/03/florida-voting-restrictions-mail-in-ballots-cancelled-ron-desantis[/i]