Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis Moving to Ban Universal Mail-in Voting in Election Integrity
Richard Moorhead
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a new election integrity reform package to safeguard his state’s elections on Friday. The set of reforms would do away with unsolicited mail-in voting, crack down on insecure ballot drop boxes, and ban ballot harvesting in Florida.
Today, I’m excited to announce new initiatives to ensure that Florida remains a leader on key issues regarding our electoral process, such as ballot integrity, public access to election information, transparency of election reporting and more. https://t.co/LwAWHKETnA
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 19, 2021
DeSantis touted Florida’s success in reporting its 2020 election results as an argument for enforcing a defined set of rules and standardized regulations surrounding election practices.
“Florida had the most transparent and efficient election anywhere in the country,” DeSantis said. “Other states took days, weeks, and even months to count their votes. And yet Florida, by midnight on election night, we had 99% reporting and 11 million votes counted, tabulated, and put out to the public.”
Florida’s legislature had moved to reform the state’s election practices in the interests of reporting brevity and election integrity following the disputed 2000 presidential election. The results of Florida’s presidential election were available and clear on election night in November, with other states implementing mass-in voting for the first time struggling to report results for several days or even weeks.
DeSantis’ proposal wouldn’t eliminate mail-in voting in Florida. It would merely require every voter who wishes to vote by mail to request a mail-in ballot every election, as opposed to mailing millions of ballots without verifying addresses and identities.
Under the package, only someone’s family member could drop off their ballot, in a move designed to prevent suspect political front groups from “harvesting” ballots. This would establish a clear chain of custody from the voter to the state without unnecessary third parties.
The comprehensive package would also require counties and municipalities to make election results public and transparent in timely fashion.
This package should be copied by every governor in the United States in order to safeguard elections at every level of government.
Follow me on Gab @WildmanAZ, Twitter @Wildman_AZ, and on Parler @Moorhead.
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