Florida
Florida Politics: Senate could scale back elections bill
“This is the best version of the bill yet. But it’s important to remember that none of this is necessary. It’s a reaction to voter turnout,” Brad Ashwell, state director of All Voting is Local, told The News Service of Florida on Tuesday. Ashwell said the number of Black voters who cast ballots by mail in Florida last year doubled — to more than 500,000 — from 2016 and 2018. Black voters also cast 11.4 percent of all vote-by-mail ballots in Florida in 2020, compared to 8.9 percent in 2016, he said. “There’s no need for this bill. It’s very much designed to reinforce that national narrative that we have problems with our voting systems for the sake of justifying barriers to voting,” Ashwell said.
WTSP: Is blowback in Georgia delaying vote on similar election changes in Florida?
Brad Ashwell, "All Voting is Local" Florida state director, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Florida get some of the same blowback as Georgia if the proposals were to pass, at least in their current form.“ Whether all the activity around Georgia is making them recalculate anything, I would think it would have to factor into their calculus in some way,” he said. “I think they are trying to be somewhat responsive now."
Florida Phoenix: Voter suppression: FL voting rights groups want corporations to follow denouncements with action
Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, and Brad Ashwell, Florida director of All Voting is Local, told the Phoenix Friday the corporations are right to oppose voting restrictions that affect their employees, their customers, and democracy itself — and they need to do more than say so. “Now’s the time for corporations to speak up — loudly and clearly and definitively,” Ashwell said. “Now’s the time for them to stand up against these bills … that are blatantly racist.”
Lehigh Acres Citizen: Advocacy groups question voter revamp bills
West Volusia Beacon “Florida voting organizations warn voter suppression lurks in proposed legislation”
“We don’t believe there is a problem that necessitates any of this,” All Voting is Local Florida State Director Brad Ashwell said.
Pew Charitable Trust “Republican Wave of Voting Restrictions Swells”
“It’s all sort of geared toward addressing this specter of fraud and the specter of problems that don’t really exist,” said Brad Ashwell, the Florida state director for All Voting is Local, a voting rights nonprofit. “They’re looking to make the process harder, more costly, and create a lot more voter confusion.”