On Monday, Florida’s Senate advanced a new voting bill that includes limits on casting ballots by mail and drop boxes.
What We Know:
- The legislation was created by the Republican Senate and lists a number of challenges to Florida’s voting laws. The restrictive bill would limit where drop boxes can be placed and would require those casting ballots to show identification to an election official first. If passed, the bill also requires voters to apply for mail-in-ballots more frequently, restricting who can drop off a voter’s ballot at a dropbox and preventing anyone except official election workers from handing out food and water to those waiting in line to vote.
- According to NBC, Democrats and voting-rights activists say the bill would create significant new barriers to voters.
“This bill is just a vindictive way of trying to punish people for an election that some people just didn’t like at the national level,” Democratic state Sen. Audrey Gibson said. “Not one indication of fraud, just a lot of folks decided that they were fed up and they wanted to vote.”
- The Republican-led Senate approved the bill with a majority vote to place new restrictions on voting in a broad effort across multiple states. The reform comes after former president Donald Trump made unfounded claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election.
- Those in favor of the new legislation, like Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters, said, “The goal for everyone is to make it as easy as possible to vote and as hard as possible to cheat. And when I hear my colleagues standing up and talk about restrictions and suppressing voters, it’s disappointing because this does nothing to suppress the vote, it does nothing to restrict the vote.”
As of late, it is unclear if the bill will be passed in the House of Representatives.
