Checking polling sites in Sarasota County Other parts of Southwest Florida may need less help to pull off a successful election.
Downtown Fort Myers also flooded, and Cape Coral sustained severe storm impacts.ĭoyle is eager for the state to provide flexibility for his community on voting. Lee is the most populous county that was heavily impacted by Ian and also the hardest hit, with storm surge decimating coastal communities such as Fort Myers Beach, Pine Island and Sanibel. They should call our office and request another vote-by-mail to a location that they may be at.” The ballots are "going to even the (homes) affected by the hurricane (that) can’t get mail delivery,” Doyle said. Doyle knows many of the mail ballots can’t be delivered because the homes are severely damaged or gone altogether. Doyle plans to get his in the mail by then, as does every other supervisor in hard-hit areas. The deadline for Florida elections officials to send out mail ballots is Thursday. The Crist and Demings campaigns did not respond to requests for comment about possible changes to voting rules for the communities impacted by Ian.
“I would disagree with the contention that we’ve made it harder to vote, it is incredibly easy to vote," he said. The order authorized super voting centers and an extension of early voting.Īmong the changes is stricter scrutiny by elections supervisors of absentee ballot drop boxes and limits on where they can be placed, a ban on people dropping off more than two mail ballots other than their own, unless they belong to immediate family members, and enhanced identity requirements for people requesting a mail ballot.īyrd disputed the idea that any changes to help communities impacted by Ian would cut against the grain of the GOP's recent focus on tightening voting rules, saying he doesn't believe lawmakers have made it more difficult to vote. "Everyday conditions are improving in the various counties, the various areas, and we want to make sure we are as prescriptive as possible in making sure that any changes that we make to our election code, or issuing an emergency order, are as narrows as possible to achieve the goal of making sure everybody can vote,” Byrd said.īyrd said he's using the executive order on voting that was issued after Hurricane Michael as a template. In an interview with the USA TODAY Network - Florida Wednesday during a stop in Bradenton, Byrd said he's considering the changes requested by Doyle and other supervisors and expects to make a decision soon. Secretary of State Cord Byrd: 'Election security and integrity is top priority"ĭoyle met Tuesday with Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, the state's chief elections officer, who has been touring counties damaged by Ian to assess their election needs. Doyle wants to accept verbal address change requests over the phone. Making a request in writing could be difficult for voters displaced by the storm.
Doyle also wants DeSantis to suspend a requirement that voters must request in writing to change the address where a mail ballot is sent.
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