ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida’s new election law was fiercely debated from the moment it was introduced. But what will it actually change for voters and the people who run state elections?
The GOP-pushed bill went through several revisions before being signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 6, and some of the more controversial measures were watered down. But voters can still expect major changes in how they vote and how county elections supervisors operate.
“Confusion and inconvenience,” said Mary Jane Arrington, the Democratic Osceola elections supervisor, when asked to sum up the new law. Republican Lake County supervisor Alan Hays told legislators the bill was a “travesty,” which seemed to have some effect in toning down the law.
The law already faces court challenges, with a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters of Florida and other groups having been filed almost immediately after it was signed.
Daniel A. Smith, chair of political science at the University of Florida, said there was “shockingly little information presented ... and virtually no data on how the various aspects of this law are going to affect voters.”
“It’s poorly drafted legislation in search of a problem,” Smith said.
Here's what the new elections law does:
—Drop box hours reduced
About 1.5 million of the state’s 4.8 million voters took advantage of drop boxes in 2020, delivering their mail-in ballot at secure boxes at elections offices or early voting sites, with many available 24/7 and monitored on video.
But the new law mandates that drop boxes at early voting sites can only be available during early voting hours, which in some counties, such as Lake County, last only from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. And boxes at elections offices must now be monitored by an employee at all times.
“It’s like having an ATM machine outside of the bank that’s only open during banking hours,” Smith said. “It makes no sense whatsoever.”
Smith said the state Public Integrity and Elections Committee found no evidence of any ballot tampering at drop boxes.
Hays said his office had “not one but three cameras trained on that drop box around the clock. And every vehicle that drove by, and every person who approached that box was on video camera. And for five elections, we haven’t had any misbehavior on the part of anyone.”
Arrington said the requirement that boxes be staffed will only lead to more cost to taxpayers.
“Is it safe to leave someone out there all night?” she asked. “Do I need two people? ... Does it have to be an employee or can I get a security company to come do that?”
If a supervisor doesn’t follow the new law, the cost could be severe. Their office would be fined up to $25,000 for every drop box in violation.
Hays, though, said he was optimistic that provision of the new law might one day be changed.
“That is something that is correctable in the next legislative session, if enough people express their displeasure,” Hays said.
—Handing out water is OK
This was originally the most controversial provision of the proposed bill, which would have echoed Georgia and banned giving water or food to voters in line within 150 feet of a polling place.
Georgia was hit with boycotts over their law, including Major League Baseball stripping Atlanta of the All-Star Game.
But Florida’s provision was amended, and now there’s no specific ban against people giving food and water to people in line. But they cannot solicit votes, and Smith said the broadness of the law means that people might still be in trouble if they’re in any way perceived as doing so.
Hays said it was something “that got a whole lot of play but is really no big deal. The people who are coming to vote can bring their own beverages if they want to. They can bring a picnic lunch if they want to. ... There’s just no solicitation of any type allowed by anybody outside. And so that’s really no big change at all.”
Arrington agreed, saying it’s her understanding that people could give water or food to her employees and nonpartisan volunteers and have them distribute it. And, she stressed, “We try not to have lines. That’s No. 1."
—Mail-in ballots every two years
Voters will have extra work to do to sign up for voting by mail. They now have to re-up for voting by mail every two years instead of every four.
“The re-upping issue is probably going to be the biggest hurdle,” said Matthew Isbell, who runs the elections data site MCIMaps. “Especially with the Democrats, who have really been using vote-by-mail to get their voters signed up, they’re going to have to be constantly re-upping people every other year.”
Arrington said every reminder the office sends out to voters will be an additional cost to her office.
“And the Legislature wasn’t concerned about cost,” she said. “One legislator I heard say, ‘Well, they can take it out of the money the Division of Elections gives them.’ The Division of Elections doesn’t give us any money to operate our office.”
The provision could end up backfiring on Republicans, Isbell said.
While Democrats outpolled the GOP in mail-in ballots during the pandemic, 2.2 million to 1.5 million, Republicans had long benefited from mail-in voting for the previous two decades, especially with seniors.
“The more hurdles on getting people signed up, I think it hurts Democrats in the short term,” Isbell said. “Long term? It really depends. We’ve got to see how this all plays out.”
—Universal mail-in ballots
The new law bans a supervisor from mailing every voter a mail-in ballot, whether they request it or not.
The practice has been a major target of former President Donald Trump, who has railed against it in other states, falsely claiming fraud.
But in Florida, Smith said, while some supervisors have sent mail-in applications to every voter, “we’ve never had universal vote-by-mail. You’ve always had to request vote-by-mail ballots. ... Sending out an application is completely different from sending out ballots.”
—Limits on dropping off ballots
A provision mandating only immediate family members can handle someone’s mail-in ballot was ultimately dropped after vocal opposition from Hays and others.
“We were able to get the Legislature to come off of that,” Hays said. “And we raised such a — well, we called it to their attention, I’ll say, that many of our seniors do not have immediate family members living near them.”
But now a person can only drop off two mail-in ballots from nonfamily members, instead of the unlimited amount previously allowed by law. It was already against the law to be paid to handle two or more ballots, so Hays said the change would not have any major impact.
But Smith said the restriction on volunteers could affect casual voters.
“It’s going to affect individuals who have difficulty getting to a mailbox or to a post office or to a drop box,” Smith said. “It’s putting restrictions on individuals or groups who already are restricted.”
—Registering students more difficult
The new law forces outside groups to register students in their home county’s elections offices, instead of letting the local office enter them into the state system.
“Let’s say you have a voter registration drive going on the UCF campus,” Smith said. “That group now has to go down to Broward or Lee County and hand-deliver the registration or put it in the mail.”
Groups face fines of $500 to $1,000 for each application not submitted to a person’s home county.
—Partisans get access to ballots
Candidates and party officials now have to be given “reasonable access” to “review or inspect ballot materials,” which could lead to a flood of observers in elections offices.
“That has the potential to create all kinds of disharmony and confrontations and everything else, at the most inconvenient time of the year,” Hays said. “And I think that’s one of the most egregious things (in the law). But legislators stated that it’s up to the supervisor to define what ‘reasonable’ is.”
“We’re not looking to play any silly games with anybody, nor are we going to allow anybody to come in and play silly games with us,” Hays warned.
—Grants to elections offices banned
The nonprofit group Center for Tech and Civic Life gave out millions of dollars in grants to county elections offices across the country last year, including Florida, thanks to more than $350 million donated from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
But not anymore, as the new law bans third-party donations to elections offices.
DeSantis was explicit that this was aimed directly at Zuckerberg, saying at a Newsmax town hall Thursday he was banning “Zuckerbucks.”
Smith said supervisors in Florida received a total of nearly $10 million to defray the costs of running the election.
“I don’t see that as being a huge deal at all,” Hays said. “Only last year did anybody ever have the question of outside money coming in.”
Arrington, though, said money from “the organization that they were so upset about ... saved the taxpayers of Osceola County $109,000. And we bought additional tabulation equipment we hadn’t budgeted that we couldn’t afford.”
—Governor fills more vacancies
The governor can now fill vacancies resulting from “resign-to-run” laws, a provision that means DeSantis would be able to fill vacancies in state elective offices stemming from the death of U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings from South Florida.
“It seems that that was a last-minute addition,” Smith said. “But it’s it has absolutely nothing to do with election security. Let’s be blunt. Very little, if anything, in Senate Bill 90 has anything to do with election security.”
