Voting

AARP Florida Director of Advocacy Zayne Smith has tracked the changes in Florida’s elections laws. She discusses what voters can expect.

Voting-rights advocates say “secrecy” envelopes would make it harder for Floridians to cast their ballots.

On this week's Florida Roundup, we discussed Gov. Ron DeSantis' reaction to separate incidents in Orlando and Miami, and a trial that got underway this week over the state’s new voting law.

More than two dozen groups filed lawsuits challenging the measure, saying it's intended to make it harder for Black and Hispanic residents to vote.

Gov. DeSantis said he wants the Florida Legislature to consider creating a state-level office that would investigate and prosecute election-related crimes, including ballot harvesting.

"I mean, this is happening not just in Florida, but it's Florida, Georgia, Texas, other states," Crist said. "And so that's why you have the federal government. You have to come in and stop these Jim Crow laws that they're passing to discriminate."

To get on the 2022 ballot, the committees would need to submit 891,589 valid petition signatures for each initiative and receive approval of the proposed ballot wording from the Florida Supreme Court.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the measure live on Fox News. It's the latest Republican-led effort to alter state voting rules following record-breaking turnout during the 2020 election.

Florida could become the latest state to revamp its election laws following the 2020 presidential cycle. The legislation follows disproven claims of voter fraud in other states by former President Donald Trump.

The Republican-controlled Legislature has taken a series of steps in recent years to make it harder to amend the Constitution.

The governor said that Florida held the “smoothest and most successful election of any state” in November, but he said the state can’t “rest on our laurels.”

While some states can't even begin to start counting mailed-in ballots until Election Day, Florida has been doing it for weeks. That means there will be a lot of results in by Tuesday night — but they won't be official yet.