Corporate-backed Florida Republicans push perplexing new voting restrictions

[Nevilledog]

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Judd Legum
@JuddLegum
1. Florida Republicans say the state did an amazing job with the 2020 election and there was no fraud (Trump won!) but they are pushing significant new voting restrictions anyway and are having a hard time explaining why

Corporate-backed Florida Republicans push perplexing new voting restrictions
Republican elected officials in Florida do not claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or subject to significant fraud. "We did it right," Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said at a press last...
popular.info
7:14 AM · Mar 23, 2021

https://popular.info/p/corporate-backed-florida-republicans

Republican elected officials in Florida do not claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or subject to significant fraud. "We did it right," Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said at a press conference last month. After all, unlike Georgia and Arizona, Trump won Florida. Nevertheless, DeSantis and his allies in the Florida legislature are pushing dramatic restrictions on voting in Florida before the next election. A Popular Information investigation, encompassing thousands of Florida campaign finance records filed over the last three years, reveals that the Republican elected officials pushing these bills through the legislature are backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate donations.

The main vehicle for voting restrictions in Florida is Senate Bill 90, which has been endorsed by DeSantis. The bill's sponsor, Senator Dennis Baxley, admits the bill is proposing "fixes" for problems that do not exist. “I’m not a person that likes to wait for a big problem,” Baxley said. “I’m all about staying ahead of whatever problems could develop.”

Democrats say the purpose of Baxley's bill is to suppress votes to give Republicans an edge in future elections. Baxley rejects that, but is less clear on what is actually motivating his efforts. "[S]ome days even I don’t know why I did something," Baxley insists.

Senate Bill 90 limits voting in three primary ways. First, it bans the use of drop boxes. Trump has insisted that drop boxes are a source of fraud, although Republicans in Florida do not argue it happened in their state. Second, Senate Bill 90 prohibits anyone other than an immediate family member from helping a voter return a mail-in ballot. Ironically, each time Trump has voted in Florida, his mail-in ballot was returned by a designee — a method that the legislation would make illegal. Finally, the bill would make a request for a mail-in ballot valid for only one election cycle instead of two. Fewer Republicans requested mail-in ballots in 2020 because Trump falsely claiming mail-in ballots were insecure.

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[TDale313]

1. We know why.

Disenfranchise any group likely to vote for Dems. Generally means targeting communities of color and younger voters. So tired of this shit. Politicians shouldn’t be able to set up these kinds of roadblocks to people’s ability to vote.

[FloridaBlues]

2. Republicans vote with mail in ballots so they are hurting themselves

In the long run.