TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday issued an executive order expanding voting access for the midterm elections in three counties where Hurricane Ian destroyed polling places and displaced 1000’s of individuals.
The move, which followed requests from Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota counties and voting rights groups, comes as Florida begins to undertake an enormous recovery from the Category 4 hurricane that hit on Sept. 28 and leveled parts of the state’s southwest.
The order extends the variety of early voting days within the three counties and authorizes election supervisors to designate additional early voting locations, steps that allow voters to solid ballots at any polling place of their registered county from Oct. 24 through Election Day, Nov. 8. Election supervisors can even relocate or consolidate polling places if obligatory.
It also waives training requirements for poll staff and suspends a signature requirement for voters requesting to have a mail ballot sent to an address that’s different from the one election officials have on file.
The choice was praised by Tommy Doyle, the elections supervisor in Lee County, which was the epicenter of Ian’s wrath along the Gulf Coast.
“The Executive Order is crucial since it allows us to maneuver forward with our plans to make voting as accessible as possible to the voters of Lee County,” Doyle said Thursday.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a Republican appointee of the governor, said state officials are working to make sure that the election is “administered as efficiently and securely as possible across the state and within the counties that received the heaviest damage.”
The changes are much like policies allowed by former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, after Hurricane Michael in 2018.
DeSantis has faced questions over what steps he would take to make sure voting access within the heavily damaged southwest a part of the state, which has leaned conservative in recent elections. The Republican governor, who’s up for reelection, has made tightening election laws a top priority over the past two years, as he and others within the GOP reacted to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud within the 2020 presidential election.
This week, a coalition of advocacy organizations sent a letter to state election officials that asked for extension of the state’s voter registration deadline, which ended Tuesday, together with a greater variety of early voting days and expanded early voting hours in affected counties, amongst other requests.
“It’s literally about removing barriers when persons are in a state of incredible hardship and in displacement,” said Amy Keith of Common Cause Florida. “Just making it in order that they can do their civic duty, they’ll exit and exercise their right to vote.”
Individually, Doyle asked for similar changes, telling state election officials that the storm has devastated the county and its neighbors.
“In Lee county, there remain few viable election day polling locations post-storm. Several established polling locations now not exist. Securing a sufficient variety of poll staff to staff ninety-seven voting sites might be problematic. Hurricane Ian has displaced countless Lee County voters and poll staff from their homes,” he wrote in a letter to the state on Oct. 2.
Hurricane Ian got here ashore in Lee County with 155 mph (250 kph) winds that decimated coastal communities and inundated areas with flooding and debris. Ian was the third deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century and Lee County has reported about half of the state’s greater than 100 fatalities.
A Lee County spokesperson said election officials there have mailed out roughly 170,000 vote-by-mail ballots and can proceed to send ballots out every day until the Oct. 29 request deadline. She added that the county will use its most experienced polls staff at its polling places.
During a news conference last week, DeSantis said he desires to keep the election “as normal as humanly possible” and added that there could also be a must make accommodations for a county as badly damaged as Lee, in addition to possibly Charlotte County to the north.
Southwest Florida leans Republican, with the counties of Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota delivering wins for DeSantis and Trump of their last general elections. Lee County voted for Trump in 2020 by nearly 20 percentage points over President Joe Biden. DeSantis is favored to win reelection this yr over Democrat Charlie Crist.
DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature have within the last two years tightened various voting rules in Florida. A law signed by the governor in 2021, prohibits individuals who would help others drop off mail ballots from possessing greater than two mail ballots aside from their very own, unless they belong to immediate members of the family. This yr Florida increased the penalty for the so-called “ballot harvesting” to a felony.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday issued an executive order expanding voting access for the midterm elections in three counties where Hurricane Ian destroyed polling places and displaced 1000’s of individuals.
The move, which followed requests from Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota counties and voting rights groups, comes as Florida begins to undertake an enormous recovery from the Category 4 hurricane that hit on Sept. 28 and leveled parts of the state’s southwest.
The order extends the variety of early voting days within the three counties and authorizes election supervisors to designate additional early voting locations, steps that allow voters to solid ballots at any polling place of their registered county from Oct. 24 through Election Day, Nov. 8. Election supervisors can even relocate or consolidate polling places if obligatory.
It also waives training requirements for poll staff and suspends a signature requirement for voters requesting to have a mail ballot sent to an address that’s different from the one election officials have on file.
The choice was praised by Tommy Doyle, the elections supervisor in Lee County, which was the epicenter of Ian’s wrath along the Gulf Coast.
“The Executive Order is crucial since it allows us to maneuver forward with our plans to make voting as accessible as possible to the voters of Lee County,” Doyle said Thursday.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a Republican appointee of the governor, said state officials are working to make sure that the election is “administered as efficiently and securely as possible across the state and within the counties that received the heaviest damage.”
The changes are much like policies allowed by former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, after Hurricane Michael in 2018.
DeSantis has faced questions over what steps he would take to make sure voting access within the heavily damaged southwest a part of the state, which has leaned conservative in recent elections. The Republican governor, who’s up for reelection, has made tightening election laws a top priority over the past two years, as he and others within the GOP reacted to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud within the 2020 presidential election.
This week, a coalition of advocacy organizations sent a letter to state election officials that asked for extension of the state’s voter registration deadline, which ended Tuesday, together with a greater variety of early voting days and expanded early voting hours in affected counties, amongst other requests.
“It’s literally about removing barriers when persons are in a state of incredible hardship and in displacement,” said Amy Keith of Common Cause Florida. “Just making it in order that they can do their civic duty, they’ll exit and exercise their right to vote.”
Individually, Doyle asked for similar changes, telling state election officials that the storm has devastated the county and its neighbors.
“In Lee county, there remain few viable election day polling locations post-storm. Several established polling locations now not exist. Securing a sufficient variety of poll staff to staff ninety-seven voting sites might be problematic. Hurricane Ian has displaced countless Lee County voters and poll staff from their homes,” he wrote in a letter to the state on Oct. 2.
Hurricane Ian got here ashore in Lee County with 155 mph (250 kph) winds that decimated coastal communities and inundated areas with flooding and debris. Ian was the third deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century and Lee County has reported about half of the state’s greater than 100 fatalities.
A Lee County spokesperson said election officials there have mailed out roughly 170,000 vote-by-mail ballots and can proceed to send ballots out every day until the Oct. 29 request deadline. She added that the county will use its most experienced polls staff at its polling places.
During a news conference last week, DeSantis said he desires to keep the election “as normal as humanly possible” and added that there could also be a must make accommodations for a county as badly damaged as Lee, in addition to possibly Charlotte County to the north.
Southwest Florida leans Republican, with the counties of Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota delivering wins for DeSantis and Trump of their last general elections. Lee County voted for Trump in 2020 by nearly 20 percentage points over President Joe Biden. DeSantis is favored to win reelection this yr over Democrat Charlie Crist.
DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature have within the last two years tightened various voting rules in Florida. A law signed by the governor in 2021, prohibits individuals who would help others drop off mail ballots from possessing greater than two mail ballots aside from their very own, unless they belong to immediate members of the family. This yr Florida increased the penalty for the so-called “ballot harvesting” to a felony.
