ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A growing number of election supervisors in Florida are mailing out reminders to voters to renew their requests to vote-by-mail, after a state law wiped the books clean on Jan. 1.
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Before, requests would have to be renewed every four years after a presidential election. Citing election security needs, Gov. DeSantis signed a law last year, knocking down that time frame to after any major election or every two years.
Data requests to all 67 Florida election supervisor offices revealed every county still has a long way to go to match the Nov. 2022 request totals – and voters in some counties are procrastinating more than others.
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The data didn’t show any obvious or worrying trends about counties that were further ahead or behind. Generally, Democrats and Republicans were renewing their requests at the same rate, but NPA voters were lagging. Overall, counties that have had special elections or municipal elections were doing better than their counterparts.
The county with the highest number of requests relative to last year was Nassau, while a dozen counties never responded.
In Central Florida, Flagler and Sumter County voters have been the most proactive. Orange and Brevard had the most ground to make up.
Marion County Supervisor Wesley Wilcox said the Ocala municipal elections, which covered half of his voters, helped him get the ball rolling early.
“We mailed a postcard out to say, hey, your vote by mail request has expired. If you’re interested and you want to continue to vote via that method, here’s what you need to do,” he said. “We’re going to do the other 50% in the October, early November timeframe.”
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Orange County, where 12% of requests have been renewed so far, plans to mail out a flyer this week.
“As the campaigns kick in, the requests, the urging to register to vote, people remembering that they prefer to vote by mail, I think we’ll see the numbers start increasing,” Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said.
Cowles said some candidates have been mailing out their own forms to help people renew their requests, although those forms will be invalid once the state implements a standardized form on Oct. 1.
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While the deadline to make a request doesn’t hit until March 9 for the major party voters and NPA voters wishing to participate in nonpartisan races, supervisors encouraged people who wanted a ballot mailed to them to jump on it.
“Please get your vote-by-mail request in sooner rather than later,” Seminole County Supervisor Chris Anderson said.
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