In 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 90, a law requiring Floridians to renew their vote-by-mail ballot requests after each general election \u2013 every two years.<\/p>\n
Previously, registered voters had to do so every four years.<\/p>\n
Officials in Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas counties are reporting a steep drop-off in mail-in ballot requests for August\u2019s midterm primary election.<\/p>\n
Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley said that his office<\/a> has received over 22,000 mail-in ballot requests to date.<\/p>\n At the same point in the 2024 general election, that figure was at 77,000.<\/p>\n Corley partially attributed the decline to politicians’ claims that voting by mail opens the floodgates to fraud.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to do some outreach initiatives to remind voters that it is a safe and secure vote and a popular way, so hopefully we\u2019ll get those numbers back up,\u201d Corley said.<\/p>\n ALSO READ: A federal judge in D.C. declines to block Trump’s executive order on voting by mail<\/a><\/p>\n Across the Tampa Bay region, the numbers paint a more complex picture \u2014 in Sarasota County, the volume of mail-in ballot requests is fairly consistent with the same period in 2024.<\/p>\n Paul Donnelly, a spokesperson for the county\u2019s elections supervisor<\/a>, said all registered voters received Notice of Elections mailers to remind them of the change.<\/p>\n Concerns mount over restrictions\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2021, the Florida NAACP and Disability Rights Florida filed a joint lawsuit challenging SB 90 on the grounds that its mail-in ballot restrictions disproportionately affect lower-income individuals.<\/p>\n A U.S. District judge originally found the law improperly discriminated against Black voters, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later overturned his ruling<\/a>.<\/p>\n Advocates say senior Americans and those with disabilities face socioeconomic disadvantages that can complicate the renewal process. People with disabilities are twice as likely as their peers to live below the low-income threshold, while adults over 65 are the highest-poverty age group in Florida.<\/p>\n With just over two months until August\u2019s midterm primary election, voting rights advocates fear many mail-in voters will fall through the cracks of the renewal requirement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that for people with disabilities, there\u2019s something called the information gap. So, even though we\u2019re in such a digital world, where you can do these things semi-easily, a lot of folks face barriers to doing so online.\u201d<\/p>\n Laura-Lee Minutello, public policy analyst<\/p>\n Felicia Bruce, president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans<\/a> (FLARA), worries that many seniors don\u2019t know they have to take this step.<\/p>\n “We should be making it easier to participate in our democracy, not harder,\u201d Bruce said. \u201cIt\u2019s a frustrating time for seniors.\u201d<\/p>\n Bruce added seniors who\u2019ve lost their driving privileges or paper records during hurricanes won\u2019t be able to verify their identity.<\/p>\n ALSO READ: Florida lawmakers push voter citizenship verification bill<\/a><\/p>\n Disability Rights Florida<\/a> public policy analyst Laura-Lee Minutello also emphasized the renewal form assumes reliable access to supporting documentation and digital technology.<\/p>\n Living with a disability means a voter may not have either, particularly if they live in a limited-broadband area, cannot pay for the internet or don\u2019t have a driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that for people with disabilities, there\u2019s something called the information gap,\u201d Minutello explained. \u201cSo, even though we\u2019re in such a digital world, where you can do these things semi-easily, a lot of folks face barriers to doing so online.\u201d<\/p>\n Like seniors, many disabled voters prefer to vote at home, avoiding the burdens of navigating public transportation or finding in-person voting assistance.<\/p>\n Minutello, who has cerebral palsy, said she doesn\u2019t think lawmakers are necessarily targeting her and other voters with disabilities, but their needs aren\u2019t being properly addressed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just aren\u2019t thought of in terms of a population,\u201d she said. \u201cThey will make these changes to voting law and not even think about the barriers they\u2019re creating.\u201d<\/p>\n ALSO READ: Lawsuits filed after DeSantis signs Florida bill requiring voters to prove citizenship<\/a><\/p>\n In April, the Florida NAACP and FLARA filed a separate federal lawsuit<\/a> contesting HB 991, which would purge voter rolls and require Floridians to prove their citizenship.<\/p>\n Lower-income individuals without driver\u2019s licenses, who could previously use retirement center and veterans’ health IDs to vote by mail, will need to get a passport, which costs around $165<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bruce believes Florida\u2019s Republican supermajority is targeting seniors as a voting bloc.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past, we seniors were reliable voters; that has changed in the last two election cycles, and that\u2019s another reason they\u2019re expanding their voter suppression tactics,\u201d Bruce said. \u201cThey\u2019re becoming more inclined to vote Democratic because the policies are directly hurting their pocketbooks.\u201d<\/p>\n Corley, while a registered Republican, emphasizes the election supervisor\u2019s office is nonpartisan, even as national politicians try to discredit his work.<\/p>\n He said that it\u2019s Floridians’ duty to vote in the midterms and urged people to reach out to his office for assistance with mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n \u201cThe importance of county commissioners, school boards \u2014 the impact they have on the day-to-day lives of citizens and voters \u2014 is more than a president, for example,\u201d Corley said.<\/p>\n The deadline to request<\/a> a mail-in ballot for the Florida primary election<\/a> is August 6 at 5 p.m., and voters must return the ballot no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day, August 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 90, a law requiring Floridians to renew their vote-by-mail ballot requests…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-288660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}