All Voting is Local Florida state director, Brad Ashwell, issued the following statement on Governor DeSantis’ executive order on how Florida will handle the upcoming primary and general elections amid concerns of COVID-19:
“Governor DeSantis’ executive order is woefully insufficient to ensure that Florida’s elections this year are free, fair, and safe. DeSantis cannot allow our elections to repeat the debacles in Wisconsin and Georgia, where far too many Black and Brown voters had to risk their health to cast their ballots.
“While we are encouraged that the state has finally indicated that federal funds will be made available to county elections officials on July 1st, there can be no further delays. That funding must be disbursed to Florida counties immediately to ensure they can expand remote registration, voting by mail, and early voting opportunities ahead of Election Day.”
Background
Over 30 advocacy organizations have provided an extensive list of recommendations that would ensure that Florida is prepared to meet the unprecedented needs to allow voters to safely cast their ballots in the upcoming elections – click here to access the full list.
All Voting is Local noted that DeSantis’ executive order missed the mark by failing to allow Supervisors of Elections to provide additional early voting, and by not requiring them to send vote-by-mail request forms to all registered voters or provide return postage on vote-by-mail ballots.