Gov. DeSantis Signs New Florida Voting Bill Into Law, Says It Adds ‘Strongest Election Integrity’
Michael Cantrell
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new voting law Thursday during a television appearance which focuses on election security and, according to him, adds the “strongest election integrity measures in the country.
“We’re making sure we’re enforcing voter ID,” DeSantis said during his appearance on Fox News from West Palm Beach as he signed the legislation into law in front of a very enthusiastic crowd of supporters.
“We’re also banning ballot harvesting. We’re not going to let political operatives go and get satchels of votes to dump them in some dropbox,” he continued.
Florida’s Senate Bill 90 also prohibits “mass mailing of balloting,” the governor said. “We’ve had absentee voting in Florida for a long time. You request the ballot, you get it, and you mail it in. But to just indiscriminately send them out is not a recipe for success.”
Florida’s law requires votes to be tracked as they come in, in real-time, and the new legislation’s provisions will strengthen that, DeSantis said.
“Not the results, but we know who’s voting, what your registration is,” he said. “We follow the turnout so that when the election’s over, we know the universe of votes that have been cast, and it makes it so someone can’t dump 100,000 votes 2 or 3 days later.”
He added, in the past election, the state had 11 million votes, or 99%, counted by midnight, so the new law will “make it even better as we go forward.”
“We’re proud of the strides that we’ve made,” he went on to say. “We’re not resting on our laurels, and signing this bill says ‘Florida, your vote counts. Your vote is going to be cast with integrity and transparency.'”
DeSantis noted he’s not a fan of drop boxes, but said the legislature wanted to keep them, but tighten up how they are used and where the boxes are located.
The new bill requires that drop boxes be geographically located to provide all voters in the county with an equal opportunity to cast their ballots and to be monitored in person.
“The drop boxes will be available only when they’re monitored and during regular voting hours,” the governor stated. “You can’t just leave these boxes out where there is no supervision at all hours of the night.”
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