March 2, 2021 ☼ voter-suppression ☼ voting-rights ☼ gop ☼ lies ☼ florida ☼ desantis
Source: The Washington Post - Link
Something remarkable happened in Florida this past Election Day: A state long lampooned for its ballot bumbling simply added up its votes and secured a winner, Donald Trump, not long after the polls closed. The election efficiency felt like a miracle.
“Florida is a model for the rest of the nation to follow,” Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, tweeted proudly the day after the election. He told reporters that Florida might have at last “vanquished the ghosts” of the 2000 presidential election, when confusing ballots, malfunctioning machines and “hanging chads” ultimately required the Supreme Court’s intervention.
But that apparently wasn’t good enough for the governor and Florida’s Republican statehouse leadership. They now want to “reform” the state’s electoral system, particularly mail-in balloting. An election reform bill, which has already cleared its first committee, and a plan promoted by DeSantis, would make it harder, not easier, for voters to obtain ballots and then drop off or mail them. Turns out, suppressing the vote in Florida is still more tantalizing to Republicans than facilitating the vote.
This will be the refrain in every red state: gerrymander and suppress. Voters in the poorer sections of cities will have their hours cut and facilities removed leading to long waits to vote. GOP leaning areas will have plenty of resources and short lines.