Dumbasses:
Republican operatives worth their salt remember well the Sunshine State’s 1988 U.S. Senate race.
Floridians went to sleep that Nov. 8 believing that Democrat Buddy MacKay had prevailed with a slim lead of less than one percentage point. The television networks had called the race for him. The St. Petersburg Times published a story the next day declaring that Republican Connie Mack had “failed to win big” in crucial conservative strongholds Lee and Pinellas counties.
Then the last of the absentee ballots came in. They went 3 to 1 for Mack, delivering him a 34,518-vote victory.
“It was legendary,” said David Johnson, a longtime GOP consultant in the state. “The Republicans had done such a good job with absentee ballots that they eked out a narrow win.”
So began a long and fruitful relationship between the GOP and absentee voting. Republican campaigns invested millions of dollars encouraging their supporters to cast ballots by mail. State legislators passed laws making it easier. Over the ensuing decades, GOP voters in Florida became so comfortable with casting ballots by mail that in 2020, nearly 35 percent of those who turned out did so, according to state data compiled by University of Florida political science professor Daniel A. Smith.
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Virtually every narrow Republican victor of the past generation — and there have been many, including two of the state’s current top officeholders, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott — owes their victory, at least in part, to mail voting.
Now, some Florida Republicans are reacting with alarm after the GOP-dominated state legislature, with DeSantis’s support, passed a far-reaching bill Thursday night that puts new restrictions on the use of mail ballots.
Florida bill limiting ballot access passes in state legislature
The Florida legislature on April 29 approved a measure that curbs mail-in voting and the use of drop boxes. (Reuters)
Not only are GOP lawmakers reversing statutes that their own predecessors put in place, but they are also curtailing a practice that millions of state Republicans use, despite former president Donald Trump’s relentless and baseless claims that it invites fraud.
Even as Democrats and voting rights advocates accuse the proponents of Senate Bill 90 of attempting to suppress the votes of people of color, these Republicans say their own political fortunes are in peril, too.
The potential fallout in the key swing state illustrates how the Republican Party is hurting itself in its rush to echo Trump’s false allegations, they said.
“Donald Trump attempted to ruin a perfectly safe and trusted method of voting,” said one longtime Republican consultant in the state who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.
“The main law that we pass when we pass election bills in Florida is the law of unintended consequences,” he said. Now, he added, the GOP must live with the result.
“It’s not going to hurt anybody, Republicans or Democrats,” Gruters said in an interview Sunday. “People are going to understand the changes that we me made long before another election comes around. People will have a full grasp of what we’re dealing with.”
He added: “My goal is to make it as easy as possible to vote and as hard as possible to cheat, period.”
In future years, Gruters said, he would like to expand early in-person voting — a method that was embraced more broadly by Republicans last fall.
This year’s bill restricts the use of drop boxes, adds hurdles to voting by mail and prohibits actions that could influence those standing in line to vote, which voting rights advocates said will probably discourage nonpartisan groups from offering food or water to voters as they wait under the hot Florida sun.
Together, the provisions compound hurdles for voters, critics said, because the curtailment of mail voting will probably lead to longer lines on Election Day and during early in-person voting, particularly in urban communities that already tend to face long wait times to vote.
Florida legislature approves measure that curbs mail voting and use of drop boxes
Senate Bill 90 requires voters to reapply for mail ballots every two-year election cycle, rather than every two cycles — or four years — as current law allows. The legislation prohibits mobile drop boxes, and it requires local election supervisors to staff all drop boxes and to allow ballots to be dropped in them only during early-voting hours. Supervisors who leave a drop box accessible outside those hours are subject to a civil penalty of $25,000.
The state’s association of county election supervisors opposed the measure, which also limits who may turn in a voter’s ballot, allowing only certain family members to do so or limiting individuals to turning in the ballots of just two nonfamily members.
People in Miami wait to vote early on Oct. 19. Critics of Senate Bill 90 say the curtailment of mail voting will probably lead to longer lines on Election Day and during early in-person voting. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
The bill marks a sharp reversal for the state GOP, which invested heavily in absentee voting in the past three decades.
After the seminal 1988 election, Republicans began working to broaden the appeal of mail voting. They reached out to the elderly in particular, expanding their electorate by teaching low-propensity voters how easy it could be to vote from home.
They established ballot “chase” programs, tapping public voter files to call Republican voters they knew had requested ballots and remind them to turn their votes in.
“Vote-by-mail programs for our statewide campaigns would cost $4 [million] to $5 million in the 1990s,” Johnson said. “It was a lot of money. But it was not at all unheard of.”
The GOP also began changing state law to make it easier to vote by mail. In 2002, the state ended its absentee voting system, intended only for voters unable to vote in person on Election Day, and replaced it with a no-excuses vote-by-mail system, one of the first states to do so.
A few years later, Republicans passed legislation creating a mail-ballot request list, allowing voters who request a ballot once to automatically receive mail ballots for two subsequent election cycles. The measure came at the request of county supervisors of elections, who had become inundated with mail-ballot requests each election. Republicans seized on the idea to eliminate a step for voters and boost turnout during off-year elections.
“For smaller elections, they just ship the ballot, which, for me, works great,” said Marianne Combs, 58, a nurse from Destin, in the Florida Panhandle, who voted for Trump by mail last year. “I’ve got good intentions of going to the polls when it’s a lesser election, but I don’t always get there.”
Even as recently as 2018, Republicans passed a law requiring a mail-ballot drop box at every early-voting site in the state.
Republican operatives worth their salt remember well the Sunshine State’s 1988 U.S. Senate race.
Floridians went to sleep that Nov. 8 believing that Democrat Buddy MacKay had prevailed with a slim lead of less than one percentage point. The television networks had called the race for him. The St. Petersburg Times published a story the next day declaring that Republican Connie Mack had “failed to win big” in crucial conservative strongholds Lee and Pinellas counties.
Then the last of the absentee ballots came in. They went 3 to 1 for Mack, delivering him a 34,518-vote victory.
“It was legendary,” said David Johnson, a longtime GOP consultant in the state. “The Republicans had done such a good job with absentee ballots that they eked out a narrow win.”
So began a long and fruitful relationship between the GOP and absentee voting. Republican campaigns invested millions of dollars encouraging their supporters to cast ballots by mail. State legislators passed laws making it easier. Over the ensuing decades, GOP voters in Florida became so comfortable with casting ballots by mail that in 2020, nearly 35 percent of those who turned out did so, according to state data compiled by University of Florida political science professor Daniel A. Smith.
ADVERTISING
Virtually every narrow Republican victor of the past generation — and there have been many, including two of the state’s current top officeholders, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott — owes their victory, at least in part, to mail voting.
Now, some Florida Republicans are reacting with alarm after the GOP-dominated state legislature, with DeSantis’s support, passed a far-reaching bill Thursday night that puts new restrictions on the use of mail ballots.
Florida bill limiting ballot access passes in state legislature
The Florida legislature on April 29 approved a measure that curbs mail-in voting and the use of drop boxes. (Reuters)
Not only are GOP lawmakers reversing statutes that their own predecessors put in place, but they are also curtailing a practice that millions of state Republicans use, despite former president Donald Trump’s relentless and baseless claims that it invites fraud.
Even as Democrats and voting rights advocates accuse the proponents of Senate Bill 90 of attempting to suppress the votes of people of color, these Republicans say their own political fortunes are in peril, too.
The potential fallout in the key swing state illustrates how the Republican Party is hurting itself in its rush to echo Trump’s false allegations, they said.
“Donald Trump attempted to ruin a perfectly safe and trusted method of voting,” said one longtime Republican consultant in the state who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.
“The main law that we pass when we pass election bills in Florida is the law of unintended consequences,” he said. Now, he added, the GOP must live with the result.
A sharp reversal
State Sen. Joe Gruters, a Republican from Sarasota, the chairman of the state GOP and a chief proponent of Senate Bill 90, said the measure was necessary to shore up public confidence in elections — something both Republican lawmakers and their supporters demanded.“It’s not going to hurt anybody, Republicans or Democrats,” Gruters said in an interview Sunday. “People are going to understand the changes that we me made long before another election comes around. People will have a full grasp of what we’re dealing with.”
He added: “My goal is to make it as easy as possible to vote and as hard as possible to cheat, period.”
In future years, Gruters said, he would like to expand early in-person voting — a method that was embraced more broadly by Republicans last fall.
This year’s bill restricts the use of drop boxes, adds hurdles to voting by mail and prohibits actions that could influence those standing in line to vote, which voting rights advocates said will probably discourage nonpartisan groups from offering food or water to voters as they wait under the hot Florida sun.
Together, the provisions compound hurdles for voters, critics said, because the curtailment of mail voting will probably lead to longer lines on Election Day and during early in-person voting, particularly in urban communities that already tend to face long wait times to vote.
Florida legislature approves measure that curbs mail voting and use of drop boxes
Senate Bill 90 requires voters to reapply for mail ballots every two-year election cycle, rather than every two cycles — or four years — as current law allows. The legislation prohibits mobile drop boxes, and it requires local election supervisors to staff all drop boxes and to allow ballots to be dropped in them only during early-voting hours. Supervisors who leave a drop box accessible outside those hours are subject to a civil penalty of $25,000.
The state’s association of county election supervisors opposed the measure, which also limits who may turn in a voter’s ballot, allowing only certain family members to do so or limiting individuals to turning in the ballots of just two nonfamily members.
People in Miami wait to vote early on Oct. 19. Critics of Senate Bill 90 say the curtailment of mail voting will probably lead to longer lines on Election Day and during early in-person voting. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
The bill marks a sharp reversal for the state GOP, which invested heavily in absentee voting in the past three decades.
After the seminal 1988 election, Republicans began working to broaden the appeal of mail voting. They reached out to the elderly in particular, expanding their electorate by teaching low-propensity voters how easy it could be to vote from home.
They established ballot “chase” programs, tapping public voter files to call Republican voters they knew had requested ballots and remind them to turn their votes in.
“Vote-by-mail programs for our statewide campaigns would cost $4 [million] to $5 million in the 1990s,” Johnson said. “It was a lot of money. But it was not at all unheard of.”
The GOP also began changing state law to make it easier to vote by mail. In 2002, the state ended its absentee voting system, intended only for voters unable to vote in person on Election Day, and replaced it with a no-excuses vote-by-mail system, one of the first states to do so.
A few years later, Republicans passed legislation creating a mail-ballot request list, allowing voters who request a ballot once to automatically receive mail ballots for two subsequent election cycles. The measure came at the request of county supervisors of elections, who had become inundated with mail-ballot requests each election. Republicans seized on the idea to eliminate a step for voters and boost turnout during off-year elections.
“For smaller elections, they just ship the ballot, which, for me, works great,” said Marianne Combs, 58, a nurse from Destin, in the Florida Panhandle, who voted for Trump by mail last year. “I’ve got good intentions of going to the polls when it’s a lesser election, but I don’t always get there.”
Even as recently as 2018, Republicans passed a law requiring a mail-ballot drop box at every early-voting site in the state.
