GOP all ‘wet’ on latest ballot signature scheme
As the nine-week session of the Florida Legislature enters a critical phase, we have one simple word for taxpayers and especially voters across Florida. Beware.
These are the frantic final days when deals are cut, lengthy amendments fly with little or no explanation, and a state budget is pieced together largely in secret, with the basic terms briefly ratified at perfunctory public meetings, often at night. (Unlike a local government, the Legislature is not subject to the open meeting provisions of the Sunshine Law). As an old saying goes, everything is connected to everything.
Far too much power is concentrated in too few hands in Tallahassee, and the legislative process is too byzantine and moves too quickly to ensure responsible and transparent government. To be fair, it has been like this for a very long time, under both Democratic and Republican control. The most precious commodity is time. The session is supposed to end on Friday, April 30, and wily politicians know how to manipulate the clock to maximum political advantage.
To make matters worse, Republicans are rewriting Florida’s election laws in ways that will confuse voters, disrupt turnout and cost county taxpayers more money, all without any justification that the laws need changing.
That’s why a group of Democrats recently performed an admirable public service in the Senate Rules Committee. They raised dozens of questions about the Senate bill (SB 90) and they didn’t let up, and they prevented a vote on this very bad bill, sponsored by Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.
Time ran out at the April 14 session before senators could vote. The atmosphere in the room was tense, and the panel’s chairman, Republican Sen. Kathleen Passidomo of Naples, wisely did not force senators to vote at a time certain as she could have, and as is often done. For once, raw political muscle gave way to sanity.
But because no vote was taken, the same bill returns for more debate, and a likely vote, in the same committee Tuesday. Republicans have the votes to pass it.
The Democrats’ chief interrogators were Sens. Randolph Bracy of Orlando, Gary Farmer of Lighthouse Point, Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville, Bobby Powell of West Palm Beach, and Perry Thurston of Plantation. They were joined by Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, the only member of the GOP caucus who consistently asks pointed and skeptical questions about the need to manipulate state voting laws.
At least a dozen controversial provisions in the bill merit close attention, but one in particular deserves scrutiny because of its potential to disenfranchise millions of voters.
It is a new requirement — never debated in public and never suggested by a single supervisor of elections — that the only signature that can be used to verify a voter’s identity is a so-called “wet” signature, or one made with a pen and paper, and only during the past four years. If the voter doesn’t have a wet signature on file that’s less than four years old, the ballot would be rejected.
Republicans are pushing this mischief even though most newly registered voters in Florida join the rolls when they apply for a driver’s license, and the state of Florida makes them sign an electronic keypad. That’s not a wet signature.
Brandes said the effect of the wet signature requirement would be to disenfranchise “potentially millions” of voters who don’t have one on file. Bracy called the idea “unfathomable,” and he said of Republicans: “I think we’re drunk with power. I’ve never seen us go this far, and no one is saying anything.”
Senators fired questions at Baxley, a master at obfuscation, non sequiturs and changing the subject, and someone who’s obviously not an expert on elections law — another red flag. When Brandes pressed Baxley about his wet signature language, Baxley started talking about voters who don’t want to serve on jury duty.
“Maybe I didn’t respond as well as I should have. I apologize if that happened,” Baxley told the Sun Sentinel afterward.
Farmer said endless changes to election laws stir distrust in the electorate, and perhaps that’s just the point: Voters will be so angry and confused that they won’t vote.
So beware. Beware especially of any Republican legislator who proposes nearly a dozen amendments to the wide-ranging House elections bill, as Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, did over the weekend. That bill (HB 7041) was scheduled for debate and votes Monday in the House State Affairs Committee, its last stop before reaching the House floor.
As everyone knows, Florida’s 2020 election was a model of reliability and efficiency, with a record high turnout and fast, accurate results in the midst of a pandemic. That was no small accomplishment.
But rather than leave well enough alone, Republican politicians with partisan political motives are hell-bent on overhauling the election laws for the 2022 election. This is dangerous for democracy.
Democrats must persist in raising questions about this scheme to make it harder for Floridians to vote. They need to keep running out the clock.