Florida Voting by Mail Targeted by Lawmaker

A Florida state senator is seeking to curb the amount of mail-in voting by restricting those who are allowed to use the service.

Republican Blaise Ingoglia is pushing a Senate bill that reduces the eligibility of voters able to mail in their ballot by imposing a strict set of conditions.

The move has been controversial across the state and the wider United States, with critics arguing that it could amount to voter suppression or an attempt to influence electoral outcomes. But supporters argue that it would tighten up electoral security and protect the democratic process.

Newsweek reached out to Ingoglia via email for comment.

Ingoglia's push comes ahead of the presidential campaign that has seen his party initially polarized between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, with Ingoglia backing DeSantis.

Trump is roundly thrashing DeSantis in the polls, with voters preferring the former president as the Republican candidate despite facing a string of legal woes and controversy about his role in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

At the moment, any voter who wants to vote by mail simply registers to vote and requests a mail-in ballot, and the approval lasts until the end of the calendar year for the next regularly scheduled general election. But the bill that Ingoglia hopes will be passed would mean that voters in Florida need to make a new mail ballot request for each election and must be:

• Expecting to be absent from their county of residence on Election Day
• Unable to vote in person because of illness or disability
• A resident/patient at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility
• Confined in jail.

The small list of those who would be allowed to access mail-in voting has alarmed some of the state's residents because it would leave out many who use mail ballots, such as the elderly, people in hospital, workers who struggle to get time off, or people living in remote rural areas.

The move has also been criticized by Lori Berman, a Democratic member of the Florida Senate. She slammed the proposals on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, writing: "In Florida, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and working residents from all parties have enjoyed the right to vote by mail for more than 20 years. No organization has contributed more to diminishing public trust and access to our elections than the Republican Party."

Berman's Democrat colleague, Shevrin Jones, posted: "The Florida Republicans are advocating for a significant overhaul of election laws, aiming to ELIMINATE vote-by-mail in Florida, with only minor exceptions. WARNING This is not the time for the people of Florida to remain passive. Your rights and our democracy are under an all-out attack."

Ingoglia defended his plans on the public affairs show Florida This Week, saying: "Voting in Florida is very, very easy. You have up to 45 days of voting, being in Florida, you have three different ways of voting in Florida [on Election Day, early voting and voting by mail].

"But what a lot of this boils down to is that when you go to vote in the polls, there are a lot of safeguards. But there's hardly—if any—safeguards when you vote by mail. And what we're doing is proposing some very commonsense solutions, to make sure that we are putting those guardrails around vote-by-mail."

He said that there have been documented examples of voter fraud relating to mail ballots.

"Over the years—I think from 2010 to 2015—20 people have been arrested. There was a grand jury that convened in Miami, and one of their recommendations was to make sure that we get rid of ballot harvesting because that was a big problem. And that's something we're trying to do with this bill."

Voters are divided online over the proposals.

Some support the plans, which they argue will protect against electoral fraud. One X user tweeted a clip of the testimony of Hima Kolanagireddy, who alleged she had witnessed what she believed to be evidence of mail fraud while working as an election representative observer of the Michigan GOP during the last presidential election.

"Here is why this [Ingoglia plan] is a good idea," the user posted.

Another supporter on X posted: "Why is it so hard for people to get off their asses and do the one thing that is the bellwether of their citizenship???"

But others commented that the option to vote by mail should remain available to all, with some arguing it was part of democracy. One X user wrote: "Thats quite the plan to suppress voter turnout. So if you want to vote by mail it looks like you need to anticipate being a patient in a hospital or plan to be sick on Election Day. Not wanting certain people to vote is the most unpatriotic thing anyone can do."

Another person said: "Severe shortages of poll workers, too. No way can everyone vote who wants to. There simply isn't the manpower."

It's not the first time Ingoglia has championed a controversial law change. Last year, he introduced a bill seeking to ban any party that has previously endorsed slavery on an official party platform, meaning that the Democratic Party would effectively be outlawed in the state, even though both main parties have historic ties to slavery and systemic racism.

Update 01/08/24, 1:36 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.