www.theguardian.com/…
DeSantis signed an executive order on Thursday that eases voting rules for about 1 million voters in Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota counties, all areas that Hurricane Ian hit hard and that all reliably vote Republican.
Meanwhile, Orange county, a Democratic-leaning area which experienced historic flooding from the storm, received no voting exceptions, reported the Washington Post.
The accommodations include extended early voting days and the ability for voters to send mail-in ballots from addresses not listed in voting records.
It’s so obvious Republicans are not trying to hide their voter suppression attempts anymore. DeSantis’s explanation of “based on the collective feedback of the Supervisors of Elections across the state” is transparently meaningless. He adds that it’s based on the written requests from the three counties, as well… so what needs to happen is Orange County officials need to broadly publicize their request and make hay.
In general, this needs to be used as ammo to counter Republicans’ baseless claims of voting fraud. Breaking through the media’s Republican firewall will be difficult but I think if enough activists, pols and journalists catch this, it could make a dent. It just depends on how much traction this gets, especially if Val Demings can get this issue to set the Democratic base on fire.