BREAKING: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs an elections bill that he and other Republicans say would place guardrails against fraud. Rights groups plan to sue, alleging that the new law harms Black, Latino and disabled voters.
Surrounded by lawmakers, Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis speaks at the end of a legislative session, Friday, April 30, 2021, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla.
The Republican governor signed the freshly passed legislation ahead of his impending announcement that he’ll run for reelection in the nation’s largest battleground state. He staged the signing on a live broadcast of Fox & Friends Thursday morning, flanked by a small group of GOP legislators in Palm Beach County. Other media organizations were shut out of the event.“Right now I have what we think is the strongest election integrity measures in the country,” the governor said as he signed it.
“For far too long, Florida’s lawmakers and elected officials have created a vast array of hurdles that have made it more difficult for these and other voters to make their voices heard,” the groups said in their lawsuit, which they planned to file in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, the state capital.
Some of the changes in Florida’s election rules contain similar provisions. Democrats acknowledge that the Florida law won’t be as draconian as the one recently adopted by its neighbor to the north. The newly signed law restricts when ballot drop boxes can be used and who can collect ballots — and how many. To protect against so called “ballot harvesting,” an electoral Good Samaritan can only collect and return the ballots of immediate family and no more than two from unrelated people. Under the new rules, drop boxes must be supervised and would only be available when elections offices and early voting sites are open.
DeSantis had pushed Republican lawmakers to deliver the sweeping rewrites of rules on voting by mail and drop boxes, and to impose new layers of ID requirements for routine changes to a voter’s registration record.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
GOP Gov. DeSantis signs Florida election law while shutting out all media but Fox NewsDeSantis signed the bill, S.B. 90, in a closed-door event that blocked out all reporters and media coverage — except for Fox News.
Read more »
Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs GOP voting law critics call 'un-American'Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a sweeping elections bill that Republicans said would curb fraud, though they acknowledged none occurred in November.
Read more »