FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Whether it’s convenience for time-starved people, wanting to avoid haranguing by political activists outside polling places, or more time to study their choices — or a combination — Florida voters love casting their ballots from their couches or kitchen tables.
More than one in three Florida voters — 2.6 million-plus, including more than 440,000 in Broward and Palm Beach counties — voted by mail in the November midterm elections.
But those voters won’t automatically keep getting ballots in the mail.
All requests for vote-by-mail ballots made in the leadup to the 2020 presidential, when mail voting surged because of the COVID pandemic, and 2022 midterm elections have now been voided.
That means voters who don’t take steps to sign up again won’t get mail ballots for any of the 2024 contests: presidential primaries, later primaries for state and local offices, or the November presidential election.
More immediately, unless people sign up again, they won’t get mail ballots for March elections where residents of six cities, towns and villages in Broward and 18 in Palm Beach County are electing local officials and deciding on referendums.
Few so far
So far, relatively few people have renewed their ballot requests.
As of Friday, 2,237 Broward voters are signed up for mail ballots, Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott said.
By comparison, 225,722 Broward residents voted by mail in November 2022 and 474,404 voted by mail in 2020..
The most recent tally in Palm Beach County was about 3,000, said Alison Novoa, public information officer and director of strategic initiatives in the Supervisor of Elections Office. In November, about 220,000 people in Palm Beach County voted by mail; in 2020 it was almost 388,000.
Don’t know
Political party leaders and election officials said most voters have no idea they need to apply again to receive mail ballots in the future.
Mindy Koch, chair of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, said she told people their past requests for mail ballots were no longer active when she spoke Jan. 8 at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Delray Beach.
“They were shocked,” Koch said. “Most of them were unaware.”
As a leader in the party that suffered significant Florida setbacks in November, Koch said getting the word out to people who expect ballots to show up in their mailboxes before elections is critical.
“This is really a high priority for us,” she said. “This is really, really, really, really very serious.”
Koch isn’t alone.
Her counterparts at the Broward and Palm Beach County Republican parties and the Broward Democratic Party said they want their party’s registered voters to sign up for mail voting.
All four said they’re prioritizing communities in each county holding elections on March 14.
Longer term, all are thinking about the 2024 election.
And both county elections offices plan outreach to let people know they need to sign up again, also prioritizing the residents of communities with local elections in March.
Mail voting evolves
Florida made mail voting much easier in the aftermath of the contentious 2000 George W. Bush-Al Gore presidential election, unlike the old absentee ballot system that required voters to provide a reason such as being out of town on Election Day.
For most of the past two decades, that was one of the Florida Republicans’ most potent weapons, helping the party rack up win after win after win. Democrats used to prefer in-person early voting.
The Republican advantage in mail voting had begun to narrow.
But during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats — who polling showed were more concerned with Republicans about COVID — moved en masse to voting by mail. During the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats were much more likely to eschew any kind of in-person voting (at regional early voting centers or at neighborhood polling places on Election Day).
Simultaneously, Republican skepticism of mail-voting started increasing as former President Donald Trump asserted the practice was rife with fraud. Florida has had sporadic instances of fraud connected with mail-in ballots, but nothing on the scope described by the president, according to a range of government officials, political analysts and partisan campaign operatives.
Expiration
The rules long provided that a mail ballot request would be good for two general elections, and not indefinitely.
So someone who signed up before the 2020 presidential election would get a mail ballot that year, and for every election including primaries through the 2022 midterm election.
But as Republicans who run Florida government sought to take actions to assuage their supporters who were riled up by Trump’s complaints, they tightened the rules.
All requests are now good only through one general election. And all ballot requests through last year’s midterms are no longer active.
And new requests, whether they’re made now or next year, will only last through the 2024 presidential election.
And the process is somewhat trickier.
A mail ballot applicant must submit a driver license (or state ID card) number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
And it must be the form of identification that the Supervisor of Elections Office has on file, Novoa said.
If the Elections Office has a driver license on file and the person submits the Social Security number, the application is kicked back.
Novoa recommended people apply for their mail ballots online. If the system doesn’t have the ID number a person enters, they’ll be prompted to try another, so someone could instantly put in the alternate.
She also said calling the Elections Office to sign up that way would work as well.
Requesting a mail ballot via the mail could require back and forth with the voter if the ID isn’t right.
Helped, hurt
Democratic party leaders are especially concerned.
Koch and Broward Democratic Chair Rick Hoye argued tightening of mail ballot rules is a part of Republican efforts to suppress the vote. Republicans say they’re motivated only by a desire to reduce chances of fraud.
Hoye, who is running for chair of the Florida Democratic Party, called it “one of the most pressing and fixable issues facing our party” and said getting those people back on the mail-ballot list would be a top priority if he’s elected.
“This unnecessary impediment will greatly affect our elderly and minority communities,” Hoye said in a statement. “We must make it easier for voters to participate in the electoral process, not create roadblocks for them to overcome.”
Democrats may have a much more difficult time going from zero mail ballot requests to hundreds of thousand before next year’s presidential election.
Republicans at the state and local level are well funded and can afford extensive operations beyond their volunteers to get people to sign up again. Democrats have far less funding. And as Florida is looking more like a Republican red state that’s unwinnable in a presidential election, Democratic prospects aren’t good for attracting financial help from major donors.
It’s a problem for the Democrats, said Sean Phillippi, a political consultant and data analyst. But, he added, the Democratic Party’s outlook in Florida is so bad for the foreseeable future that it’s not even anywhere near the top of the list of issues the party has to contend with. For example, he said, a much bigger, more basic issue is that in 2021 Republicans pulled ahead of Democrats in the number of registered voters statewide.
“It’s a medium-sized problem. The biggest problem right now is the voter registration disadvantage,” he said. “The voter registration deficit, and voter registration crisis, for the Florida Democratic Party is a much bigger problem than vote-by-mail.” In 2021, Republicans overtook Democrats in the number of registered voters in Florida.
Michael Barnett, chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said the organization encourages in-person voting. “But we want people to have that backup [of mail voting] in case something happens,” he said. “Absolutely it’s very important.”
Votes cast by mail helped the Republicans make inroads in Palm Beach County last year. “We saw an increase in Republican voter turnout by mail last year, and I think that may have resulted in some victories we had locally, at least in part,” Barnett said. “That’s one of our priorities. We want to encourage all Republican voters to request their vote-by-mail ballots for the municipal elections and going into the election next year.”
Broward Republican Chair Tom Powers said many of his party’s voters don’t like mail voting. Rule tightening under Gov. Ron DeSantis makes him “comfortable using a vote-by-mail ballot. As long as mail-in ballots are legal, I’m encouraging our members to request a vote-by-mail.”
Even people who don’t like the idea should put in a request, Powers said. “You don’t have to use them if you don’t feel comfortable using them, but they are there. If you fall down and break your leg … and haven’t voted, you can use vote-by-mail. You’re not committing you’re going to use it, but I encourage everybody to at least request it.”
Scott said he thinks turnout in the March local elections will decrease because of the changes.
Some people, he said, might not be aware their communities are holding elections in March and find out only when the mail ballot arrives or decide to participate only once they receive the ballot and it’s easy to return.
“One of the big questions that we’re about to find out the answer to in a couple of months is how many people are participating in their municipal elections because they receive their vote by mail ballot,” Scott said. “Are they going to show up in person and vote in person? Are they going to be aware that a city election is happening?”
Information
People can apply or get information about mail ballots at supervisors of elections offices.
Broward County: www.browardvotes.gov (click on the vote by mail tab near the top), 954-357-8683.
Palm Beach County: www.pbcelections.org (click on the voters tab at the top, then ways to vote), 561-656-6200.
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