By Staff Writer
On Monday Gov. Ron DeSantis creating a first-of-its-kind office in Florida to investigate improper and dishonest voting with other changes with the state’s elections system, (SB 524) was signed into law.
Some of Florida law makers pointed out that the state had few problems in the 2020 elections. However, DeSantis said Monday the added changes should give Floridians “more confidence” about the voting process.
“At the end of the day, we want to be in a situation where everyone knows the rules,” DeSantis said.
Office of Elections Crimes and Security in the Department of State seemed to be the pivotal point of the new law.
DeSantis buffed out, “I think this office will be very, very much appreciated,” And it will allow us to have people who really specialize in election security and election integrity.”
Critics argued that the new law is intended to continue disenfranchising and suppress voting by minorities and Democrats to give Republican an upper hand in future elections.
“Instead of working to increase access to the polls, Gov. DeSantis continues to prioritize disinformation and feed into lies that the 2020 elections were not accurate, which is super-ironic and disingenuous because in November 2020 the governor was bragging about how well our elections went,” Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, read from a prepared statement.
Rep. Susan Valdes, D-Tampa, expressed her concerns as “chilling effect.”
“No Floridian should fear reprisal from an unaccountable agency with a nebulous mission simply because they wanted to register their fellow citizens to vote or help a neighbor turn in their mail ballot,” Valdes said in a statement. “We should be doing everything in our power to make it easier for our fellow Floridians to vote, yet this bill is another example in a years-long campaign to undermine that right.”
The 2021 law included revisions that would make it harder to vote by mail. Also, it targeted “ballot harvesting,” which can include collecting and delivering vote-by-mail ballots for multiple people.
The new law, in addition to creating the office in the Department of State, calls for the appointment of Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers to investigate allegations of election violations, with at least one officer in each region of the state.
The bill also will ratchet up financial and criminal penalties for violating elections laws, including for ballot harvesting. The penalty for ballot harvesting will increase from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.
Another part of the bill will require county supervisors of elections to annually scour voter rolls for potentially ineligible voters in a process known as “list maintenance.” Prior to the new law, supervisors were required to do list maintenance every other year.
“Some supervisors have done a really good job at cleaning the voting rolls, but not all of them have done it,” DeSantis said. “This bill now requires them to clean their voting rolls every year.”
Also, the bill will necessitate the secretary of state to turn in by Jan. 1 a plan to “prescribe the use of a Florida driver license number, Florida identification card number, Social Security number, or any part thereof to confirm the identity of each elector returning a vote-by-mail ballot.”
That part of the bill was reduced after a prior edition would call for citizens to use another envelope for mail-in ballots and to use last four digits of their driver’s license, Social Security, or state identification numbers —- which opponents believe to be confusing to voters.
The law was approved along party lines.
The measure (SB 524) expands on a 2021 state law that passed as Republicans across the country argued steps needed to be taken to combat fraud after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last month ruled that parts of the 2021 law were unconstitutional, though the state has appealed.
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