Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a law Monday that was a step forward in addressing the state’s broken election system that caused voters to wait as long as eight hours to cast a ballot in 2012, but it fell short of repairing the damage done by a restrictive 2011 law.
That law, HB 1355, cut early voting to a minimum of only 48 hours over 8 days, down from 96 hours spread over 14 days. It also made other problematic changes to voting laws, including restricting community voter registration drives, and ending many voters’ ability to update their addresses and vote a regular ballot at the polls. It was also the subject of extended litigation that ultimately rejected some of its worst provisions.
This week, Scott approved HB 7013, which restores some of the lost early voting hours by raising the minimum early voting hours to a mandatory 64 hours over eight days and allowing county supervisors to schedule early voting for up to 168 hours over 14 days. The new law also allows (but does not require) supervisors to schedule early voting on the Sunday before the election. Although these options are an improvement over the dismal HB 1355–as Project Vote wrote in its testimony on an earlier version of the bill–the law “leaves too much to be decided by election supervisors: although it helps good election administrators to improve early voting, it does little to require improvement where it is needed most.”
Among other provisions, the new law also expands the number of options open to supervisors to designate early voting polling places.
But it only partially restores a provision that allows voters to update their address and vote a regular ballot on Election Day, meaning too many voters who moved will still be forced to cast a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots take more time to vote (causing longer lines), take more time to process, and are much less likely to be counted.
The new law is at least a step forward. But it doesn’t go far enough. Next time, the legislature should do more to ensure that all eligible voters have an equal opportunity to take advantage of early voting regardless of where they live, and ensure that all voters who moved can easily cast ballots that count.
Photo by Gage Skidmore via Creative Commons license