Meeting the requirements of a new voting law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis will cost Florida elections offices thousands of dollars in additional funding.
Under the new law, ballot drop boxes can only be used during early-voting hours. They must be located at a county elections office or early-voting site, and they must be guarded by an employee of the elections office. Voters who request a mail-in ballot must provide a state driver’s license, state ID or Social Security number, and they will now have to request a ballot every year.
The costs of hiring staff to guard boxes and handle increased administrative tasks, plus the mailers and postage to notify voters about these changes, will strain county budgets.
Officials called Florida’s 2020 elections flawless; Governor DeSantis even tweeted, “Florida is a model for the rest of the nation to follow.” Florida has been running successful vote-by-mail operations for 20 years. The pandemic raised mail-in ballot use across the board, with minority and Democratic voters seeing especially high increases.
So why all the changes now? It seems odd our Republican-led Legislature would incur these expenses and increase governmental regulation — unless they actually want it to be harder to vote next time around.
More at OrlandoWeekly.com.
