Gov. DeSantis has done his best to discourage new voter registration efforts

Across our spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and the purple mountain majesties of our great but struggling nation, many people and organizations are working to extend the fundamental right to vote to all lawful citizens. Special plans for expanding the foundational right to vote to all lawful citizens are being made for National Voter Registration Day on September 19. In the face of efforts to expand the franchise, there are several states focused on making it harder for citizens to vote and adding difficulty to registering voters, including here in Florida.

In a 2021 ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker found that Florida officials have spent the last 20 years intentionally making registering voters and voting more difficult by creating a variety of prohibitions erroneously. Since Judge Walker's order, the Florida legislature has “gifted” Floridians with yet another nearly 100-page law with a slew of even more prohibitions, increased criminal penalties, and fines related to voting. This new government “fix”, also known as Senate Bill 7050, directly impacts any organization that wishes to register voters in Florida.

The League of Women Voters, a more than a century-old non-partisan organization, whose volunteer members are dedicated to registering and educating voters, has made the difficult decision to change its way of doing business in Florida due to this newly enacted law. Dedicated volunteers will no longer collect completed paper voter registration forms and return them to their local Supervisors of Elections on a voter's behalf. Gone are the days when hundreds of skilled volunteers with paper registration forms, pens, and clipboards will register voters in neighborhoods and at community events. Senate Bill 7050 sets fines for even inadvertent errors so high, the League’s yearly budget could be affected.

Fines for turning in voter registration applications late have also risen drastically, while the time allotted to turn in the applications has been shortened from two weeks to 10 days. Couple with this, if a person wants to mail their voter registration form in, they run a risk that the application will not be received in time to vote.

Despite the continued efforts to make registering voters more difficult and perilous, the League of Women Voters of Florida believes every lawfully eligible citizen should have the right to vote. The League is committed to continuing to provide Florida’s citizens with expert voter registration assistance and nonpartisan education for all voters.

To protect the organization from the harmful provisions of Senate Bill 7050, the League has purchased tools to assist citizens in using Florida's online voter registration process. Instead of registering several voters at once, as possible with paper forms, the League is now limited by the number of devices it can afford to have on hand. Citizens who are not able to use the internet form will be provided a blank voter registration application, an envelope, the requisite Supervisor of Elections address, and a stamp. Sadly, due to the new provisions, League members cannot even place sealed envelopes with completed forms in the mail on behalf of registrants.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, is a saying we grew up with here in the South. This is especially true when applied to government actions. After the 2022 midterm election, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared, "The way Florida did it, I think, inspires confidence. I think that's how elections should be run. We're now being looked at as the state that did it right, and the state that these other states should emulate."

The governor and the secretary of state were proud to proclaim all states should follow Florida’s lead in election laws and processing. Instead, we soon learned there would be additional unnecessary restrictions and penalties imposed.  Fixing something that “ain’t broke” is exactly what the Florida legislature and the governor did when enacting Senate Bill 7050.

Nevertheless, the League of Women Voters is strong, and its dedicated members are unyielding. Regardless of the unnecessary roadblocks erected, the League will continue to empower voters and defend democracy. Although the system wasn’t broken and the government’s “fix” just made things a whole lot worse, the League will continue to assist citizens in registering to vote in the same professional, experienced, and qualified manner just a lot less efficiently and with a significant increase in cost.

Cecile M. Scoon, Esq. and Debbie Chandler, Esq. serve as co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Florida.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Send letters to the editor (up to 200 words) or Your Turn columns (about 500 words) to letters@tallahassee.com. Please include your address for verification purposes only, and if you send a Your Turn, also include a photo and 1-2 line bio of yourself. You can also submit anonymous Zing!s at Tallahassee.com/Zing. Submissions are published on a space-available basis. All submissions may be edited for content, clarity and length, and may also be published by any part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gov. DeSantis has done his best to discourage new voter registration efforts