MAGA's DeSatanism@Work: Florida finds a new way to marginalize voters
S. E. Anderson
The people of Florida can never rest easy as long as politicians and bureaucrats keep looking for new ways to make it harder for them to vote.
The latest assault on the election laws, carried out under the cynical Republican guise of “election integrity,” came last session in the form of House Bill 1205, regulating citizen initiatives to change Florida’s Constitution.
The new law includes the most severe restrictions on ballot campaigns in any state, making it all but impossible for voters to directly access the ballot — such as by imposing financially crushing $50,000 fines on petition groups for violations.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1205 last May, and much of it took effect immediately. But one key component takes effect today, Oct. 1.
For the first time, county election supervisors can start verifying individual petitions under the new law.
The petition form itself is different, too, and how it changed is the subject of much talk among the people who manage Florida elections.
Erasing a little box
The state made a little-noticed change to the form, eliminating a box that for years allowed voters to update their addresses if they had moved within the same county. Some voters who filled out petitions listed a different address than the one on file in the state voter database.
The box provided a solution for that — and now it’s gone, as provided for in HB 1205.
It may seem like a minor paperwork issue, but in a state with such a mobile, transient population and hundreds of thousands of college students, it is no trivial matter.
“Without the box, the voter obviously can’t make an address change via the petition form,” said Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox in Marion County. “They could in the past.”
Voters can update their addresses online at registertovoteflorida.gov, but many of them may not know that.
Several election supervisors who spoke to the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board said that under the old law, voters classified as “inactive,” often for not having voted recently, could return to full, “active” status by checking the box and updating their addresses.
Another voting barrier
But the new law, and the new form, does not give the voter the option of an address update.
Brad Ashwell lobbies for voting rights in Tallahassee on behalf of a national group, All Voting is Local.
“By removing the box, the state is stripping inactive voters of a key way to regain active status,” Brad Ashwell of the voting rights group All Voting is Local wrote by email.
“For years,” Ashwell said, “signing a petition has been an accessible path to reactivation, alongside voting, updating registration or requesting a mail ballot. This quiet change to the petition form creates yet another barrier for inactive voters who should be getting more encouragement to participate, not more red tape.”
Ashwell noted that their signed petition forms won’t count, either, because Florida law prohibits counting signatures from inactive voters.
Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Link, president of the state association of election supervisors, corroborated Ashwell’s account.
“That box is now gone,” Link said. “We could use that (box) to make them active.”
HB 1205 required the state Division of Elections to rush the new form into circulation by June 1. The bill was silent on a check box for address changes, and sure enough, the box is gone.
Public input? Nope
The change happened so fast that the state has not even held a meeting to take public comment on the revised petition form at what’s known as a rule development workshop. Four election supervisors said a workshop should be required in this case.
We asked the Division for an explanation of the form change, but received no response.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd, the state’s chief elections official, is scheduled to appear before a legislative committee next Tuesday to discuss various voting-related issues, including “election security,” according to an online agenda.
That meeting is an opportunity for lawmakers to demand an explanation from Byrd on how HB 1205 doesn’t just hurt petition drive organizers — it hurts voters, too. ///
s. e. anderson
author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners
www.blackeducator.org
"If WORK was good for you, the rich would leave none for the poor." (Haiti)
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