Voting rights advocates question motive for challenging mail-in ballots

By St. Clair Murraine
Outlook staff writer

Voting rights advocated vow to continue educating and registering voters for the 2022 election, despite challenges that a bill before Gov. Ron DeSantis could bring.

The legislature last week passed SB 90, which proponents say is necessary to prevent potential fraud. The bill specifically targets vote by mail, which had its most successful run with over 1 million Floridians using the option to cast their votes in the 2020 election.

Opponents of the measure call it a throwback to the Jim Crow era when Blacks had to prove their eligibility to vote. Additionally they worry that changing the current vote -by-mail law would affect Blacks, other minorities and the elderly who rely on the mail-in option.

“It’s another way to disparage minority voters from the ballot box; keep you from your vote,” said Don Tolliver, vice president of the Tallahassee chapter of the National Action Network. “If your vote wasn’t so important they wouldn’t try to restrict it. It’s another mechanism to deter African Americans; whatever Black, brown whatever you’re a part of from voting.”

Considering that Republican led by DeSantis called last year’s election one of the smoothest in the recent history, introduction of the bill by Sen. Dennis Baxley of Ocala prompted calls of voter suppression.

Voting rights advocated in Tallahassee and Leon County had been sounding their displeasure over the bill, which passed last Wednesday. Several amendments were made to the bill before it finally made its way out to the governor.

Even if the bill is signed into law by DeSantis, the Big Bend Voting Rights Project will continue the work that has been doing for the last two years, said Bob Rackleff, an organizer and former Leon County commissioner.

“Register and vote,” Rackleff said. “That’s the only thing that counts.”

The goal is to register 2,022 people before the election next year, Rackleff said. Leading up to the election last year, the Big Bend Voting Rights Project, registered 1,030 new voters between 2019 and 2020.

They used a door-to-door approach, targeting people in hard-to-reach communities and ex-felons. Their campaign was successful despite being closed down for several months due to COVID-19, Rackleff said.

Big Bend Voting Rights Project also took its campaign to Georgia ahead of the runoff election that put two Democrats into the Senate. The group’s effort resulted in 165 people registering to vote in a three-week period before the runoff, despite challenges presented by the coronavirus.

In fact, it was the pandemic that spurred more than 1 million in the state to use the vote-by-mail option last year. Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley advocated it, saying that using the post office to vote was as safe as paying bills by mail.

That is the same case made by Oz Hernandez, Leon County Democrats Corresponding Secretary. He was especially concerned that caregivers would not be able to drop off ballots to a drop box site for the individuals that they care for.

“There are many, many people, a large portion of our population that cannot go out to vote in person for health concern,” said Oz, who also is president of the Future March, Inc, a voting rights organization. “It’s essentially an attack on our voters. That is what it comes down to.”

The bill includes many issues but Baxley contends that voting by mail has to be addressed because of the two-cycle period that those who prefer using the mail currently have. He made his point by saying if an individual changes address, the new resident could have access to their ballot.

However, there is no validity to Baxley’s case, Oz said.

“That gets in the way of minorities being able to vote,” he said. “If you’re working two, three jobs election day is hard enough. Now you’re telling me I can’t mail this thing in.”

Patricia Brigham, president League of Women Voters of Florida, called the bill “completely unnecessary” and predicted that law suits will follow if the governor signs it into law.

Florida joins more than 30 Republican led legislatures that are putting election changes in place. That is widely considered a response to former president Donald Trump’s unproven claim that the 2020 election was rigged for Joe Biden to win the White House.

Trumps assertion is a “fallacy.” Brigham said.

“Excuse me; that makes no sense whatsoever,” she said. “Why are you changing a winning game. This is a solution in search of a problem. We had no problem in 2020. If any; they were insignificant and we had no report of fraud. Florida had a great election, which we are very proud of.

“We are very suspicious of what (Republicans’) motives are. Absolutely without question. They are trying to roll the clock back to another era. That era has passed and it’s very disturbing that this is happening.”