{"id":54259,"date":"2025-11-20T16:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/54259\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:14:09","slug":"florida-election-supervisors-once-again-ask-lawmakers-to-make-it-easier-to-vote-by-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/54259\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Election Supervisors once again ask lawmakers to make it easier to vote by mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Election Supervisors are again asking state lawmakers to change state law to make it easier for Floridians to vote by mail, but whether the GOP-controlled Legislature will act on the request is questionable, since they ignored a similar request earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Ramba, representing the Florida Supervisors of Elections, told the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Wednesday that Supervisors in the state want lawmakers to reinstate the checkbox on mail-in ballot envelopes, an item wiped away by a 2021 election law<\/a>\u00a0that requires voters to renew their vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots requests every two years instead of every four years.<\/p>\n

As election officials told lawmakers in a similar committee meeting before the 2025 Legislative Session, the results from two Special Elections held earlier this year put in stark relief how voters are still not used to the change in law.<\/p>\n

Referring to the Florida\u2019s 1st Congressional District election in the Panhandle, Ramba said there were 98,000 plus VBM requests on file in November 2024, when then-GOP U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz was running for re-election. After Gaetz resigned from the seat and a Special Primary Election was held in January 2025, there were just over 12,000 VBM requests.<\/p>\n

Ramba said the same situation took place in Florida\u2019s 6th Congressional District, where a Special Election was held earlier this year after Mike Waltz stepped down to serve as Donald Trump\u2019s National Security Adviser. (He\u2019s now U.N. Ambassador.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a huge expense for our Supervisors to go out and then solicit people who want to vote by mail,\u201d Ramba said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they do vote by mail, and we receive your ballot in the November \u201924 General Election VBM, we are confirming your personal information. We know your address. We sent you that ballot. We do not send ballots out to people who did not ask for them. We have confirmed your signature. We have counted your ballot. We believe there should be the opportunity for that valid voter to \u2014 we call it \u2018check the box\u2019 \u2014 to be able to ask to continue to be on that vote-by-mail list.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat representing parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, said it\u2019s become obvious that the law making it incumbent for voters to request a vote-by-mail ballot every two years after an election simply isn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not helping the electorate. The supervisors of elections have told us that. The numbers tell us that. All of our constituents tell us that. Every meeting I go to with constituents I end it by saying, \u2018You must renew your vote-by-mail ballot,\u2019 because people don\u2019t know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we should \u2014 we in this committee should look at the data and say, \u2018This didn\u2019t work. This was a failed experiment.\u2019 Let\u2019s go back to how it was before with checking the box, because there was no fraud associated with checking the box because of the excellent list maintenance and everything that they do and all of the laws that have been implemented since that time and take a look at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The request was one of just seven that the organization representing Florida\u2019s 67 Supervisors of Elections made Wednesday to the committee.<\/p>\n

Other requests included:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Exempt from public records personal information of election workers as \u201cCritical Infrastructure Assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Have the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles automatically provide the Election Supervisors the new numbers assigned to the voters who receive a new driver\u2019s license or identification card (the issue stems from a 2024 law<\/a>\u00a0that could affect voters\u2019 ability to vote by mail or have their signature on a petition ballot be counted).<\/p>\n

\u2014 Allow a voter now deemed \u201cinactive\u201d to become an \u201cactive\u201d voter if he or she signs a ballot petition form.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Give Supervisors of Election the flexibility to choose different early voting location sites when the main office is not suitable for early voting.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Eliminating the requirement to place a ballot cast in a provisional ballot envelope if polling hours are extended by the Governor beyond 7 p.m. on election night.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Expand the list of offenses involving \u201ccritical infrastructure\u201d to include the theft or tampering of election equipment and\/or ballots.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Reporting by\u00a0Mitch Perry.\u00a0Florida Phoenix\u00a0is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor\u00a0Michael Moline\u00a0for questions:\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Election Supervisors are again asking state lawmakers to change state law to make it easier for Floridians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11591,33931,33932,28,30,29,33933],"class_list":{"0":"post-54259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-2026-election","9":"tag-david-ramba","10":"tag-election-supervisors","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-vote-by-mail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54259","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=54259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}