PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Florida Republicans are pushing a bill to make it more difficult to vote by mail.
The Florida Committee Substitute Senate Bill 90 prevents local elections’ supervisors from sending ballots to voters without a request, increasing the identification requirements, and banning drop boxes
Introduced by Florida Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala), the chair of the Ethics and Elections committee, the measure would also restrict vote-by-mail applications to one election cycle and require everyone who received mail-in ballots in the last election to reapply in 2022. Under the current law, applications to vote by mail are approved for two general elections.
To explain the efforts, Florida Republicans point not to evidence of problems but to the potential for voter fraud and suspicion about the process. “We want everyone to vote, but we don’t want anyone to cheat,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a recent press conference.
(The Associated Press contributed to this story)
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