Florida | August 25, 2021
AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES MAJOR NATIONAL EFFORT TO PROTECT VOTING RIGHTS
Florida | August 25, 2021
Chairman Blackwell, “…Make It Easy To Vote And Hard to Cheat.”
Atlanta, GA—Today, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) launched its Center for Election Integrity (CEI), which will participate in a national effort to conduct research, educate stakeholders, and develop policies that help make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.
The United States Constitution grants state legislatures direct authority over its elections. Through a strategic approach, CEI will work with state partners to highlight what measures can be taken to help ensure their elections are free and fair.
Ken Blackwell, CEI Chairman, said, “We must help make sure that people have confidence in our system and that we give citizens a fair vote count. CEI is excited to work in conjunction with many other organizations that have been fighting for secure voter laws, undergirding, and amplifying their good work. We want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
CEI will work to amplify the importance of voter identification, require ballots to be returned by election day, stop the practice of ballot harvesting, ensure voter rolls are consistently cleaned and kept up to date, prohibit the privatization of elections, and litigate cases of voter fraud…. (Excerpts from America First Policy Institute)
Florida | April 30, 2021
Florida Passes New Elections Bill Adding Restrictions to Vote-by-Mail and Ballot Drop Boxes
Florida | April 30, 2021
Florida’s Republican-controlled Senate on April 29 passed a new bill that places several restrictions around vote-by-mail and ballot drop boxes.
The bill, SB 90 (pdf), was passed in the state House 77-40 and in the Senate 23-17. It now goes to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it.
If signed, it would require signature verification for voters, provided by a “wet signature” physically signed on paper kept on file, and access to drop boxes would be limited to early voting hours unless they are located at election supervisors’ offices. Drop boxes would also have to be monitored in-person by an elections official, and ID would be required when dropping off ballots.
Other aspects in the bill include limitations on who can return a finished mail-in ballot, preventing election officials from entering consent agreements, and requiring voters to request a mail ballot every election cycle, rather than every two, as under current law…
(Excerpts from The Epoch Times)
Florida | April 18, 2021
DeSantis Moving Ahead with Election Reform
Florida | April 18, 2021
Florida GOP Gov, Ron DeSantis said Sunday the state is moving ahead on election reform that will “basically” ban ballot harvesting.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” DeSantis said the reform will zero in a practice that allows voters to fill out an absentee ballot and then entrust it to another person to drop off at a mail center or ballot drop-off location.
“We had signature verification for mailing ballots and we had voter ID for a long time,” DeSantis said, noting the “key things” in the state’s new bill concern “eliminating any loopholes for ballot harvesting, we will basically have a ban on ballot harvesting in Florida.”…
(Excerpts from Newsmax)