“Provisional ballots spike, but Florida elections supervisors say they’re not needed”

The Miami Herald reports.  The report includes direct evidence that one recent Florida law was intended to make it harder for college students to vote:

Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sponsored the law that included the provisional ballot changes. Despite the national criticism he’s received for supporting it, Baxley said the changes were needed.

Baxley said he pushed to have the out-of-county requirement after talking with a friend, Alachua County GOP chairman Stafford Jones.

Baxley said Jones told him that voters from Tampa and other cities shifted their voter registrations to Gainesville for a day to vote in the city’s 2010 mayoral election in which Craig Lowe became the city’s first openly gay mayor by a 42-vote margin.

“It wasn’t right for people to move in and steal an election like that,” Baxley said.

Jones said he wanted the county transfer provision to keep college students from voting.

“The liberals do a good job of bringing in college kids to vote on local issues,” Jones said. “The kids vote on raising our taxes, but don’t have to live here to pay the consequences.”

Jones said he has no proof to support his claim, only recollections of liberal blog posts that people were moving to vote.

 

Share this: