San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Governor boosts election access for storm victims
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued an executive order expanding voting access for the midterm elections in three counties where Hurricane Ian destroyed polling places and displaced thousands of people.
The move, which followed requests from Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota counties and voting rights groups, comes as Florida begins to undertake a sweeping recovery effort from the Category 4 hurricane that hit on Sept. 28 and leveled parts of the state’s southwest.
The order extends the number of early voting days in the three counties and authorizes election supervisors to designate additional early voting locations, steps that allow voters to cast ballots at any polling place in their registered county from Oct. 24 through Election Day, Nov. 8. Election supervisors can also relocate or consolidate polling places if necessary.
It also waives training requirements for poll workers and suspends a signature requirement for voters requesting to have a mail ballot sent to an address that is different from the one election officials have on file.
The decision 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 because it allows us to move forward with our plans to make voting as accessible as possible to the voters of Lee County,” Doyle said.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a Republican appointee of the governor, said state officials are working to ensure that the election is “administered as efficiently and securely as possible across the state and in the counties that received the heaviest damage.”
DeSantis has faced questions over what steps he would take to ensure voting access in the heavily damaged southwestern part of the state, which has leaned conservative in recent elections. The Republican governor, who is up for re-election, has made tightening election laws a top priority over the last
two years, as he and others in the GOP reacted to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Last 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, along with a greater number of early voting days and expanded early voting hours in affected counties,
among other requests.
“It’s literally about removing barriers when people are in a state of incredible hardship and in displacement,” said Amy Keith of Common Cause Florida. “Just making it so they can do their civic duty, they can go out and exercise their right to vote.”
Separately, 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 poststorm," he wrote in a letter to the state on Oct. 2.
Hurricane Ian came ashore in Lee County with 155 mph 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 more than 100 fatalities.