Gov. Ron DeSantis is making it easier for voters to cast ballots in three southwestern Florida counties that were hit hard by Hurricane Ian and are bastions for GOP support, sparking criticism that he is “politicizing a natural disaster.”
More than 1 million voters in Charlotte, Sarasota and Lee counties will have more time to get to the polls for early voting in the upcoming general election and will have more ways to file a mail-in ballot under the order the Republican governor signed Wednesday.
Some of the accommodations being offered run counter to recently enacted voting laws pushed by DeSantis and passed by the GOP-led state legislature. Among those laws is one that limits drop boxes, called “ballot intake stations” in the law.
Under the order, elections supervisors in the three counties can set up new early-voting and drop-box sites. Vote-by-mail ballots can also be sent to an address other than where the voter is registered.
DeSantis signed an executive order on Thursday that eases voting rules for about 1 million voters in Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota counties, all areas that Hurricane Ian hit hard and that all reliably vote Republican.
Meanwhile, Orange county, a Democratic-leaning area which experienced historic flooding from the storm, received no voting exceptions, reported the Washington Post.
The accommodations include extended early voting days and the ability for voters to send mail-in ballots from addresses not listed in voting records.
Voting rights groups had previously asked the governor to extend the statewide voting registration deadline, which ended on Tuesday, and to add more early voting days, as well as implement other accommodations.
DeSantis complied – but only for the three Republican counties.