Panel moves forward with elections bill

Democrats question new vote-by-mail restrictions

TALLAHASSEE — Voters casting mail ballots would face a series of new hurdles to have their votes count under a bill approved by a House panel Monday, with GOP supporters saying it’s needed to ensure the integrity of the system while Democrats bashed it as an unnecessary burden that will disenfranchise many.

“The things in this bill are meant to increase election security without suppressing anybody’s vote,” said Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, a former chair of the Republican Party of Florida, who is sponsoring the legislation.

Democrats questioned the need for the bill at all after the relatively smooth general election in Florida in 2020.

“We’re talking about [voter] fraud, and I would like to see an audit done to give evidence to this fraud,” said Rep. Allison Tant,

D-Tallahassee.

The bill passed through the House Public Integrity and Elections Committee on an 11-6 party-line vote, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.

Although the House bill, PCB PIE 21-05, imposes new requirements for vote-bymail ballots, some of them aren’t as restrictive as the Senate version of the bill, SB 90.

For instance, the House version requires vote-by-mail requests to be made each election, but grandfathers in requests made between the 2020 election and July 1, when the bill would take effect, so any request made since the last election would be valid through the 2024 general election. The Senate version doesn’t do that.

Also, in the Senate version drop boxes are banned entirely, while the House version would still allow them, but restrict their use to early voting hours of operation, with election officials monitoring them and checking the identification of people who drop off ballots. Supervisors of elections, however, would be subject to a $25,000 fine if a drop box is available to use outside of early voting hours.

The House measure also bans anyone other than the person requesting a mail ballot from handling the ballot, except for an “immediate family member” — a parent, child, grandparent or sibling — or a person living at the same address as the voter.

Voters’ rights groups have contested this provision, saying it would prevent disabled or elderly home-bound voters without nearby relatives from being able to count on a caretaker to put their ballot in the mail or drop box for them.

“Friends or caregivers charged with crimes if they pick up or drop off a voteby-mail ballot is very concerning to us,” said Trish Neely of the League of Women Voters.

Ingoglia said he’s going to work on amending that part of the bill to accommodate disabled and elderly voters but wants to maintain the restrictions to combat possible “ballot harvesting,” where mail ballots are gathered en masse by a campaign.

Ballot harvesting has happened in Florida elections before, but mostly with elections for the Legislature or local government. No widespread voter fraud that could’ve changed the outcome of statewide elections in Florida has been found. That has led Democrats to question why Ingoglia is focused on that type of voter fraud, but not the alleged fraud involved in an ongoing case surrounding former state Sen. Frank Artiles, who is accused of paying a friend $45,000 to run as an independent candidate in a Miami-based Senate race last year as a ploy to siphon votes from the Democratic incumbent.

Ingoglia told reporters that issue involves campaign finance, not voter fraud, and can’t be addressed in his bill, but he wouldn’t say whether sham candidates would be dealt with in a different bill.

“I do not care who is committing the voter fraud. We should always take steps to be proactive in making sure that doesn’t exist,” Ingoglia said.

Other parts of the bill would require the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to inform local supervisors of elections when a registered voter changes their address; prohibit private non-profit groups from giving grants to local supervisors of elections offices; and require a voter’s signature on a mail ballot to match the “most recent” signature on file with election officials.

Another provision would give state party officials, rather than local county party officials, the power to decide on a replacement when a candidate for office exits the race. Local Republican Party officials have had to step in at least twice to name replacements in recent elections, including in 2018, when the Volusia and Brevard Republican parties tapped Tom Wright to replace Sen. Dorothy Hukill, who died of cancer before the election, on the ballot.