Florida latest to enact tougher voting rules
WASHINGTON — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday enthusiastically embraced former president Donald Trump’s demand for tougher election laws, signing into law a slew of new voting restrictions in a live broadcast despite previously touting how smoothly his state’s elections ran last fall.
The move came hours before the Texas House was scheduled to take up a similar measure.
DeSantis hailed the Florida measure as necessary to shore up public faith in elections, but critics accused him of trying to make it harder to vote, particularly for people of color.
The Republican governor’s signing of the bill, which he delivered live on the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends,” makes Florida the latest GOP-controlled state to impose new voting hurdles, following Georgia, Montana and Iowa. Besides Texas, other states considering their own bills include Arizona, Michigan and Ohio.
DeSantis said the law would prevent ballot “harvesting” and the stuffing of ballots into unmonitored drop boxes — though such practices already were prohibited in the state, and there’s no evidence they occurred last year.
“We’re not going to let political operatives go and get satchels of votes and dump them in some drop box,” the governor said.
DeSantis’ vigorous support for the new law is the latest example of the GOP’s rush to align with Trump’s false assertions that the 2020 election was marred by fraud. Even as some Republicans privately have lamented Trump’s false statements that Joe Biden stole the election, few have been willing to say so publicly — and those who have quickly faced blowback.
In Washington, GOP leaders are moving to oust Rep. Liz Cheney, RWyo., the House Republican Conference chairwoman, from her leadership post after she said Trump’s election claims incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and that lies about the 2020 vote are “poisoning our democratic system.”
Last weekend, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was booed at a state party convention for similar remarks rebuking the former president.
Like similar bills that Republicans are pushing in dozens of state legislatures nationwide, the Florida measure adds hurdles to voting by mail, restricts the use of drop boxes, and prohibits any actions that could influence those standing in line to vote, which voting rights advocates said probably will discourage nonpartisan groups from offering food or water to voters as they wait in the hot Florida sun.
Democrats and voting rights advocates accused Republicans of trying to make it harder for some Floridians to cast ballots — and to appease constituents who believe Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen.
“This blatant voter suppression is Jim Crow 2.0 and will make it harder for voters — from low-income rural white communities to the elderly to communities of color — to have their voices heard,” state Sen. Shev Jones, a Democrat who represents parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, said in a statement. “It is clearly part of a coordinated, targeted assault strategy as Florida joins a long list of states pursuing similar disenfranchisement efforts in recent months.”
The Florida measure immediately was challenged in federal court. Voting rights advocates including the League of Women Voters of Florida, the Black Voters Matter Fund, Common Cause and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed two lawsuits arguing that the law is unconstitutional.
Both suits say the law creates undue and uneven barriers to voting.
“Senate Bill 90 does not impede all of Florida’s voters equally,” the League of Women Voters and other groups argued in their suit. “It is crafted to and will operate to make it more difficult for certain types of voters to participate in the state’s elections, including those voters who generally wish to vote with a vote-by-mail ballot and voters who have historically had to overcome substantial hurdles to reach the ballot box, such as Florida’s senior voters, youngest voters, and minority voters.”
Critics said the new law curtails poll access in ways that will intimidate, confuse and otherwise make it harder for people to vote by mail, which is popular in Florida. In November, more than 4.8 million Floridians — more than 40 percent of the fall electorate — cast mail ballots, including many Republicans.
The new constraints on voting by mail could produce longer lines during early in-person voting and Election Day voting, critics said.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that “Florida is moving in the wrong direction.”
“The 2020 election was one of the most secure elections in American history,” she said. “There’s no legitimate reason to change the rules right now to make it harder to vote.”
DeSantis argued that the law will bolster election security.
“Your vote is going to be cast with integrity and transparency, and this is a great place for democracy,” he said on Fox News.