DeSantis changes voting rules for some counties hit by Ian, sparking criticism - The Washington Post

Some of the accommodations being offered tally antagonistic to precocious enacted voting laws pushed by DeSantis and passed by the GOP-led authorities legislature. Among those laws is 1 that limits driblet boxes, called “ballot intake stations” successful the law.

Under the order, elections supervisors successful the 3 counties tin acceptable up caller early-voting and drop-box sites. Vote-by-mail ballots tin besides beryllium sent to an code different than wherever the elector is registered.

“Tens of thousands of Floridians person been displaced, and today’s enforcement bid fails to conscionable the infinitesimal and guarantee voting entree for each Florida voters,” Jasmine Burney-Clark, laminitis of the elector rights enactment Equal Ground, said successful a statement. “Instead, Governor DeSantis is politicizing a earthy disaster.”

Hurricane Ian slammed ashore arsenic a Category 4 tempest successful Lee County connected Sept. 28, killing implicit 100 people and causing upward of $75 cardinal successful damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency offered catastrophe alleviation to 24 of the state’s 67 counties. Wind, tempest surge and flooding near a way of demolition that stretched from Naples to St. Augustine.

DeSantis’s emergency bid says the determination to alteration the ballot rules for lone 3 counties was made “based connected the corporate feedback of the Supervisors of Elections crossed the authorities and astatine the written requests of the Supervisors of Elections successful Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties.”

Lee County, wherever Hurricane Ian made landfall, has “few viable Election Day polling places post-storm,” according to the order, and “several established polling locations nary longer exist.” The Lee County elections bureau besides reported that the hurricane “displaced countless Lee County voters and canvass workers from their homes.”

Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said successful a connection that his bureau worked with elections supervisors “to guarantee that the 2022 General Election is administered arsenic efficiently and securely arsenic imaginable crossed the authorities and successful the counties that received the heaviest damage.”

Election Day is Nov. 8. Mail ballots are already being accepted successful the state. Early-voting deadlines alteration by county, but the bid says aboriginal voting tin statesman connected Oct. 24 successful the 3 counties.

Voting rights advocates person been asking for DeSantis to marque allowances for voters affected by Hurricane Ian crossed the state. Representatives from a fig of organizations, including Equal Ground, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and the Voting Rights Project, wrote a missive to Byrd and DeSantis connected Tuesday asking for an exigency bid to marque voting easier successful each 24 counties considered to beryllium catastrophe areas.

Some of what the groups requested — including expanding early-voting days and locations — was included successful the bid DeSantis signed connected Wednesday, but lone for 3 counties.

More than 450,000 voters successful Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota are registered arsenic Republicans, compared with 265,000 Democrats and astir 290,000 affiliated with nary party.

Overall, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats successful many, but not all, of the counties damaged by the hurricane. Orange County, wherever Hurricane Ian passed arsenic a Category 1 tempest and near historical flooding successful Orlando and surrounding areas, has 360,389 registered Democrats and 217,061 registered Republicans. It was not granted immoderate exceptions.

Burney-Clark, of Equal Ground, said by excluding the different counties affected by the storm, the bid “will stay yet different illustration of Governor DeSantis disenfranchising voters.”