Florida: Will the Recount State Be Ready for the Election? | Patricia Mazzei and Frances Robles/The New York Times

Most states have the occasional problems running their elections. Not Florida. Florida has debacles. … More than two decades of scandals and blunders have made Florida the nation’s elections punchline, the state that kept the world at the edge of its seat while votes for president were manually recounted. The shadows of Florida elections past seem to lurk everywhere.“I feel like I’ve seen this movie before,” Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee said in a ruling this month after the state’s voter registration website crashed under the weight of thousands of last-minute applications. Now the state, like the rest of the nation, faces perhaps the most daunting test yet: a 2020 election conducted in the midst of a pandemic, amid unsubstantiated fraud claims spread by the president and others. Reasonable predictions suggest that the legal wrangling over the results could stretch far beyond election night. Is Florida ready?

Florida: Emails threatening voters to “vote for Trump or else!” linked to overseas servers | Melissa Quinn, Stefan Becket and Graham Kates/CBS

Dozens of voters in a heavily Democratic county in Florida and across several states reported receiving emails on Thursday purporting to come from a right-wing group threatening to “come after” them unless they vote for President Trump. But an examination of the messages, which are now under investigation by state and federal authorities, shows they were sent via servers located overseas, raising questions about their origin amid concerns about voter intimidation just two weeks before Election Day. Democratic voters in Alachua County, Florida, began receiving the email on Tuesday morning, and voters in Alaska and Arizona also reported receiving the message. Early voting began in Florida on Monday. The emails appeared to come from the right-wing group The Proud Boys, and showed a “from” address of info@officialproudboys.com. The Proud Boys has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights advocacy group.

Florida voting machines ripe for Russian hackers, experts say | John Pacenti/Palm Beach Post

Bad actors working for the likes of Russia and other nation-states are lurking on the internet, waiting for their chance to infiltrate the American voting system. Florida may be ripe for the picking, computer scientists say, because numerous counties rely on voting machines that are drawing fire for their vulnerability to a cyberattack. These computer scientists along with election integrity groups familiar with the model that Palm Beach and 48 other counties use, say there are potentially numerous ways for a foreign entity to alter results. They say that state election officials have accepted wholesale the spin from the manufacturer that these machines — which voters at polling places feed ballots into after marking candidates of their choice — are secure. “It has been asserted that voting machines are not vulnerable to remote hacking because they are never connected to the Internet, but both the premise and the conclusion are false,” states a Sept. 15 letter sent to Florida’s Division of Elections by nearly 30 of the country’s top computer scientists and election integrity groups.

Florida: Vote-by-mail settlement clears decks for voting in crucial Florida primary, general elections | Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix

A weekend settlement doesn’t resolve every point of contention between voting rights organizations, the state, and Florida’s 67 county supervisors of elections over access to early and mail-in voting during the pandemic in the country’s largest electoral swing state. But to the extent the outcome helps disadvantaged groups — Blacks, Latinos, the disabled, and more — overcome the state’s allegedly “gross inaction,” it could help decide an historic election. And in expanding access to both voting alternatives and mandating that the state and supervisors promote them among the public, it leaves those organizers free to use limited financial resources to move these voters to the polls instead of paying lawyers. That was the analysis representatives of those groups offered during a Zoom conference call Monday as U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle signed off on the settlement agreement. The day marked the deadline to register to vote in the Aug. 18 primary elections for state offices and Congress. “This settlement is a clear victory and a step forward for black and Latinx voters, as well as for all Floridians. Florida has finally done one thing right about the COVID crisis — Florida is settling this case,” said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project.

Florida: Vote-by-mail legal battle reaches settlement | Tampa Bay Times

On the eve of a trial slated to begin Monday, lawyers representing the state and plaintiffs in a legal battle over Florida’s vote-by-mail procedures have reached a settlement. Priorities USA, Dream Defenders and other plaintiffs have been seeking to expand the state’s vote-by-mail process, arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a record number of Floridians casting ballots from home to reduce chances of being infected with the highly contagious coronavirus. Among other things, the plaintiffs asked to extend a deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned. They also wanted free postage for the ballots and challenged a provision in Florida law restricting paid workers from collecting mail-in ballots. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle had set aside two weeks for a trial scheduled to start Monday. But on Sunday, plaintiffs and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration notified the court that they had reached a settlement.

Florida: Democrats Go to Court to Compel Supervisors of Elections to Retain Electronic Ballot Images | Mitch Perry/Spectrum News

A group of Florida Democrats filed a lawsuit earlier this month, claiming that the supervisors of elections who are destroying electronic ballot images from vote scanning machines are in violation of state and federal law. Election law requires that supervisors of elections retain paper ballots for at least 22 months after an election, but approximately 40 of the 67 counties are not retaining their electronic ballots, according to the suit, which was filed on July 1 in the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County.  “It’s the redundancy. Instead of just one set of paper ballots, you have a set of paper ballots and you have the ballot images,” says attorney Chris Sautter, representing the group AUDIT Elections USA, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of a number of Florida Democrats. Digital vote scanners are in use throughout Florida as the mechanism by which voters cast ballots and the ballots are tabulated. These digital vote scanning systems replaced optical scanners over the course of the past decade. They function by capturing an electronic image of each vote on each ballot. As ballots are fed through digital scanners, the scanners automatically create an electronic image of each ballot that is automatically stored as an electronic file.  In the 2018 general election in Florida, there were approximately 3,000 so-called “lost votes.” Sautter claims that those votes would have been counted if the ballot images were preserved, and thus there would have been a more accurate account.

Florida: Lawsuit seeks to force Florida counties to preserve digital ballot images | Allison Ross/Tampa Bay Times

A national nonprofit that advocates for election security has spearheaded a lawsuit against Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee and several county elections officials in an attempt to force them to preserve images of ballots that are made when paper ballots are scanned into voting machines. The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in Leon County Circuit Court, asks that the state issue instructions in time for the Aug. 18 primary election to require all county supervisors of elections to capture and preserve the images. The group of plaintiffs includes the Florida Democratic Party, three state legislators who are up for re-election and Dan Helm, a Democrat running for Pinellas County supervisor of elections. Other voters are also plaintiffs, including Susan Pynchon, executive director of the Florida Fair Elections Coalition. The suit names Lee, who oversees the state’e elections system, as a defendant, along with the state’s director of the division of elections and the supervisors of elections in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Broward, Orange, Lee, Duval, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.

Florida: As elections go digital, Democratic legislators want state to preserve the images | Mary Ellen Klas/Miami Herald

Should Florida keep a digital image of every ballot that gets recorded on vote scanning machines? That is the question three Florida Democratic legislators want a judge to decide in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Leon County Circuit Court. They say it’s time the state stop the practice of destroying digital images of ballots after an election, especially with the state’s reputation for razor-thin election margins. The lawsuit, by Rep. Joseph S. Geller, D-Aventura, Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Windermere, Sen. Victor M. Torres, D-Kissimmee, Dan Helm, a candidate for Supervisor of Elections in Pinellas County, as well as eight voters and the Florida Democratic Party, asks a judge to require the state to order local election officials to retain the ballot images from optical scanning machines for 22 months. State and federal laws require that paper ballots be retained, but there is no requirement that the images used to verify the ballots be kept as well. The lawsuit asks that ballot images be treated as public records available for inspection and production. “We believe that local election officials want to follow the law, but they need clear direction from the Secretary of State, who is the chief elections officer for the State of Florida, and the courts,” said attorney Chris Sautter, who also serves as counsel to AUDIT Elections USA. The complaint was filed in the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County.

Florida: Judge chips away at mail-in ballots case in Florida | Dara Kam/News Service of Florida

Laying the groundwork for an upcoming trial in a case seeking to expand the state’s vote-by-mail procedures, a federal judge on Friday tossed out an effort by left-leaning groups to require county elections officials to pay for postage for mail-in ballots. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle held a status conference in preparation for a July 20 trial in the case, which is a consolidation of legal challenges focused largely on the state’s mail-in ballot processes. The trial is expected to last at least 10 days and will come a little more than three months before the November elections. In one of the lawsuits, the organization Priorities USA and other plaintiffs have urged the judge to extend a deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned and require free postage for the ballots. They’re also challenging a provision in Florida law restricting paid workers from collecting mail-in ballots. Earlier in the week, Hinkle rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that requiring voters to pick up the tab for stamps amounts to an unconstitutional “poll tax,” saying the cost for postage was no different than the price voters have to pay to take public transportation to cast their ballots in person.

Florida: Lawyer says ex-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin illegally voted in Florida, asks Aramis Ayala to pursue charges | Katie Rice/Orlando Sentinel

A man running for election supervisor in Pinellas County is asking Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala pursue charges against Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis ex-cop accused of killing George Floyd, alleging he voted illegally in two Florida elections. Dan Helm, a Democrat and attorney, sent Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala a letter notifying her of Chauvin’s voting record. “While living in Minnesota, working there, paying taxes there, Derek Chauvin cannot claim residency in Orange County. His home, residency and where he intends to live is in Minnesota, not Florida,” Helm wrote. His letter cites the Florida statute prohibiting false swearing and the submission of false voter registration information, adding that violation of the statute is a third-degree felony. “I encourage you to hold people accountable for their actions, especially breaking the laws of our state,” Helm wrote.

Florida: Vote by mail helps Florida Republicans. So why is Trump bashing it? | Allison Ross/Tampa Bay Times

Florida Republicans have long embraced vote by mail as a reliable method to turn out their base. And the Republican Party of Florida says it doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. But as with many things in this unprecedented 2020 election in the age of the coronavirus, voting by mail has suddenly become a controversial and partisan issue. The reason why is the same as nearly everything else in politics these days: President Donald Trump. The country’s top Republican, who is a Florida resident and has himself voted by mail, has repeatedly attacked expanded use of mail-in ballots in recent weeks. Earlier this month, he tweeted a threat to withhold federal funding for Michigan for going down the “voter fraud path” of sending absentee voter applications to all registered voters. He’s said voting that way has “tremendous potential for voter fraud.” But Trump has also made comments that appear to signal a concern that greater access to voting by mail could increase turnout and aid Democrats, who have historically been less likely to vote by mail in Florida and in some other states.

Florida: Lawsuit aims to make it easier to mail in votes | James Call/The Palm Beach Post

A retired police captain who helps the elderly, an Ocala minister and a Miami man confined to his home don’t want the coronavirus to disrupt this year’s presidential election. They have banded together as lawsuit plaintiffs to take Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee and Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley to court. The goal is to make vote by mail the default choice for Florida’s 13.7 million registered voters. Florida has recorded more than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths since March.  More than 80% of the fatalities have been people over 65, and more than a quarter have been people of color, who make up about a fifth of the state’s population. In a complaint filed last week in Leon County, the plaintiffs argue that fear of COVID-19 threatens to rob the vote of Floridians who are part of high-risk groups like themselves, and similar people to whom they assist and minister. Their attorney, Harvey Sepler of Miami, explained no one knows the kind of threat the virus will pose during the August primary and November general election. The ability of many people to vote may depend on alternative voting methods, the suit says. The solution, according to former Marion County Sheriff’s Captain Dennis McFatten; Cynthia Cotto Grimes, senior minister at the Center for Spirtual Living in Ocala, and Art Young of Miami is to make vote by mail the first option for Floridians.

Florida: GOP enters legal fray over Florida vote-by-mail | Gary Fineout/Politico

Republicans are seeking to join a high-stakes voting rights battle in Florida, claiming that Democrat-aligned groups are using the coronavirus outbreak as an excuse to strike down voting laws. The Republican National Committee, the Republican Party of Florida and the National Republican Congressional Committee on Thursday asked a federal judge for permission to intervene in a lawsuit brought against Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and state and local election officials. “Democrats never let a crisis go to waste, and they are using a pandemic to completely destroy the integrity of our elections,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a written statement. The case, she said, “exposes Florida to potential fraud.” A group of Florida voters, Democratic super PAC Priorities USA and other Democratic-leaning organizations filed the lawsuit in U.S. district court in Tallahassee in early May. The case seeks to throw out state ballot-return deadlines and laws limiting who is allowed to collect vote-by-mail ballots and return them to local election offices.

Florida: No charges filed in Florida Democrats’ mail vote fraud probe | Ana Ceballos/Miami Herald

State law-enforcement officials found “no evidence of fraudulent intent” by the Florida Democratic Party after more than a yearlong investigation into alleged vote-by-mail fraud, records show. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Wednesday released records tied to an investigation into Democratic Party members altering election forms at the tail end of the 2018 election cycle, which was dominated by three statewide recounts. Investigators found “no evidence of fraudulent intent to use the altered forms” on April 20 and handed the case over to the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution to determine if there was enough evidence and information to file charges. “It is closed now, so prosecutors have determined no charges,” Jessica Cary, a spokeswoman for FDLE, wrote in an email Wednesday to The News Service of Florida. Florida Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said Wednesday there was a “lack of sufficient evidence to support prosecution” in the case.

Florida: A Trump election conspiracy collapses | Marc Caputo/Politico

A Trump election conspiracy theory has fallen apart after Florida’s law enforcement agency said it had found no widespread voter fraud in the 2018 races for Senate and governor. President Donald Trump had complained repeatedly about election “fraud” and theft in heavily populated, Democrat-rich Broward and Palm Beach counties, which had slowly but erratically updated their vote totals after polls closed on Election Day. With each updated tally, Republican candidates Rick Scott, who was running for U.S. Senate, and Ron DeSantis, in a bid for the governor’s mansion, saw their margins of victory narrow. Both races ultimately went to recounts. It’s common for election margins to change as more ballots are counted, but Scott, who was governor at the time, claimed without evidence that the counts reeked of Democratic fraud, a conspiracy theory Trump amplified on Twitter. Scott called for an investigation. Trump backed him up. “Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!” wrote Trump on Nov. 8, 2018.  In a tweet the next day, the president falsely accused Democrats of sending “their best Election stealing lawyer, Marc Elias, to Broward County they miraculously started finding Democrat votes. Don’t worry, Florida – I am sending much better lawyers to expose the FRAUD!” But neither Trump’s unnamed “lawyers” nor the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found evidence of a “big corruption scandal.” The state took more than 17 months to wrap up its investigation Wednesday, and found none of the wrongdoing alleged by Trump and Scott.

Florida: Groups say federal funding for election efforts during coronavirus | Dave Berman/Florida Today

A coalition of voting-rights advocacy organizations on Wednesday urged the state to do more to assure that there would be full access to elections in the current time of the coronavirus pandemic. During a video news conference, they pushed for the state to help local supervisors of elections gain access to federal money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, including for measures to accommodate the expected increase in people voting by mail. They also want to increase the time periods for early in-person voting. That would reduce the potential for long lines of voters on Election Day, allow for social distancing, and better protect poll workers and voters from risk of infection. “Florida’s voters deserve a safe, efficient and fair election,” said Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. “We expect nothing less.”  One proposal would be to have county supervisors of election mail every voter information on how to obtain a vote-by-mail ballot, including a mail ballot request form.

Florida: After pleas, Secretary of State requests federal coronavirus money for election | Allison Ross/Tampa Bay Times

Following public prodding from county elections officials and others, the Florida Secretary of State has requested more than $20 million in federal money to prepare for the 2020 elections amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Florida Supervisors of Elections, a bipartisan association of the state’s county elections officials, had urged the state for about a month to request the money and make it available as soon as possible as the Sunshine State gears up for the Aug. 18 primary and November general election. The money is Florida’s share of $400 million in federal aid for elections as part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Every state is required to make a 20 percent match; in Florida’s case, that’s roughly $4 million.

Florida: Election officials push DeSantis on COVID-19 voting changes | Anthony Man/South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Florida elections supervisors said Wednesday that Gov. Ron DeSantis needs to “act immediately” to take steps to alleviate coronavirus-caused strains on the state’s voting systems. They want emergency changes in state rules, and they said DeSantis needs to access $20.2 million in federal money to help pay for election changes necessitated by the pandemic. While Florida waits, other states are out buying up supplies. A letter to DeSantis indicated frustration on the part of the 67 county supervisors of elections, who sent him a detailed request for emergency changes in election rules on April 7. Five weeks later, the supervisors are still waiting. Primaries for congressional, county and state legislative nominations and nonpartisan elections for school board and judges are on Aug. 18. But mail ballots for military and overseas voters go out July 4 and early voting in some counties starts on Aug. 3. “Our request for executive action cannot wait any longer,” Craig Latimer, president of the Florida Association of Supervisors of Elections, wrote in Wednesday’s follow up.

Florida: State election officials provide little direction as election season arrives amid the pandemic | Allison Ross/Tampa Bay Times

As local election officials across Florida scramble to prepare for one of the most divisive presidential races in U.S. history, they say state officials are providing little support to help them brace for the added challenge of protecting voters in a global pandemic. A chief concern among county elections officials is whether the state will take $20 million in federal funds awarded to protect the 2020 elections in the state as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package that became law in March. On Wednesday, the Florida Supervisors of Elections, a bipartisan group that represents the state’s 67 county-level elections offices, urged Gov. Ron DeSantis to accept the money. “I…want to express my concern that Florida is lagging behind nearly every other state in securing (federal) funding for elections,” Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer wrote for the group on Wednesday. “While we wait, the goods and services we need are becoming scarce.”

Florida: Supervisors want DeSantis to take CARES Act money | Alex Daugherty and David Smiley/Miami Herald

Florida is one of just four states that have yet to accept federal funds to prepare for elections during the coronavirus pandemic, and the state’s election supervisors are urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to take the money now. The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, a bipartisan group that represents county-level election supervisors across the state, sent a letter to DeSantis on Wednesday urging him to take $20 million in funds awarded to Florida as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill that became law in March. The letter is a follow-up to one the group sent a month ago, asking DeSantis to help supervisors prepare for the coming August and November elections by granting them some flexibility under the law — a request that has gone unanswered. “I … want to express my concern that Florida is lagging behind nearly every other state in securing CARES Act funding for elections,” Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer wrote Wednesday. “While we wait, the goods and services we need are becoming scarce.”

Florida: Florida becomes hot spot in the election security wars | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Florida, which is a perennial swing state in presidential elections, is now shaping up as a battleground over election security efforts during the pandemic. Officials there have yet to say whether they’ll accept $20 million in federal money that lawmakers and experts say is vital to manage a surge in voting by mail and other changes brought on by the novel coronavirus. The money is Florida’s share of $400 million in election security funding Congress included in the coronavirus stimulus bill in March. But Congress also mandated states match that money with 20 percent of their own funds and it’s not clear whether Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the state legislature are prepared to foot the $4 million bill. “Florida doesn’t have a great record of administering elections during normal times, so during a pandemic the lack of planning and the lack of additional resources could be catastrophic,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), told me. Florida is the only remaining state that hasn’t signaled its intentions regarding the federal money. If officials there don’t accept it, lawmakers fear that could lead to a dramatic failure on Election Day that throws the winner of the presidential election or control of Congress into question and plays into the hands of U.S. adversaries that want to undermine confidence in democracy.

Florida: Is postage a poll tax? Federal lawsuit challenges Florida’s vote-by-mail. | Jim Saunders/Tampa Bay Times

Pointing to expected voting problems this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, left-leaning groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging parts of Florida’s rules for vote-by-mail ballots. Priorities USA, Alianza for Progress, the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans and individual plaintiffs filed the lawsuit Monday, almost exactly six months before the Nov. 3 general election. The lawsuit challenges state laws and procedures that include requiring elections supervisors to receive vote-by-mail ballots by 7 p.m. on election night for the ballots to count. The lawsuit argues that ballots should be valid so long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day. “While the Election Day receipt deadline is constitutionally problematic in its own right, under the current circumstances —where a global pandemic will lead to a significant increase in mail voting while at the same time severely burdening an already compromised USPS (United States Postal Service) and thinly stretched local elections staff — it cannot survive judicial scrutiny,” said the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tallahassee.

Florida: Court Hands Blow to Democrats Who Sued Over Florida Ballot Order | Bobby Caina Calvan/NBC 6

The state of Florida does not have to come up with a new way to list candidates on the ballot, a federal appellate court ruled Wednesday, dealing a blow to Democrats who argued that Republicans have an unfair advantage because the current system automatically lists their candidates first. The high-stakes jockeying over name order on Florida’s ballot is hardly inconsequential as Republicans and Democrats grapple for every advantage they can get in elections that are often too close to call on election night. Tossing out a lower court’s ruling, the appellate court found that the lawsuit filed by three Florida voters and several Democratic groups had wrongly targeted the state’s chief elections officer, who the court said isn’t responsible for printing ballots and setting the order in which names appear. In a statement, the groups said they would weigh their options. They also took issue with the court’s finding that Democrats were not harmed. Under Florida law, President Donald Trump would automatically appear at the top of the ballot in November — ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee.

Florida: Mail voting expected to ‘explode’ in Florida as coronavirus reshapes 2020 elections | David Smiley/Miami Herald

In Florida, a state where the steady rise of mail voting has dramatically transformed the campaign season over the last 20 years, the novel coronavirus could fast-forward the evolution of elections. Elections offices in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — home to more than a quarter of Florida’s 13.2 million voters — are preparing to send vote-by-mail registration forms to every voter in those counties amid worries that the virus will disrupt in-person voting this summer and fall. Elections supervisors and political organizations around the state asked Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis weeks ago to provide flexibility under state law to help them administer the upcoming elections. They’re still waiting for an answer, and in the meantime are widely encouraging voting at home — even as President Donald Trump, a Florida resident, has called for restrictions. “My push for vote by mail isn’t political in any way,” said Wendy Sartory Link, elections supervisor in Palm Beach County, Trump’s home county. “It’s just safety. It’s a safety-driven measure.” But a significant spike in mail voting in the nation’s largest swing state could have political implications for the 2020 elections and affect campaigns for years to come by pushing a larger percentage of the vote into the weeks before Election Day.

Florida: Hurricanes, cyber risks and virus imperil Florida vote | Bobby Caina Calvan/Associated press

As if hurricanes and cyberthreats weren’t enough, Florida elections officials are now also contending with a viral pandemic as they prepare for elections in August and November’s crucial presidential contest. Elections supervisors from across the state are asking Gov. Ron DeSantis for an executive order that would loosen some election rules so local officials can have more flexibility in where they put polling places and when people can vote. “It’s going to be a different election from any other. We’ve done so much to prepare for cybersecurity and hurricanes,” said Tammy Jones, the chief elections officer for Lee County and the head of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, a group of elections officers encompassing the state’s 67 counties. “This is a new thing for us — for all states across the country who are facing the same problems we are facing today,” she said. “We are trying to do our best to keep voters safe.”

Florida: A full vote-by-mail election in Florida isn’t happening in 2020, despite coronavirus, state leaders say | Steven Lemongello/Orlando Sentinel

Voting by mail in Florida has in the past been beset by problems ranging from signature mismatches, delivery delays and tight deadlines. Now, it could be the key to holding full elections if the state is still in the middle of a pandemic and to avoid scenes like what happened in Wisconsin on Tuesday, where thousands lined up for hours wearing face masks after the state and U.S. Supreme Court rejected postponing a vote there. Democrats and voting rights groups in Florida and across the U.S. are pushing hard to make vote-by-mail as widespread as possible, especially after poll workers for the March 17 state presidential primary tested positive in Broward and Duval counties. Congressional Democrats included billions of dollars for expanded vote-by-mail in their version of the coronavirus stimulus, most of which did not end up in the final bill but is still on the table for future ones. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed 72% of all U.S. adults, including 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, supported universal mail-in ballots. Meanwhile, President Trump and many Republicans are openly hostile to voting by mail, even as Republican governors and legislatures in states such as Ohio are moving forward with it and after Trump cast a mail-in ballot in Florida himself.

Florida: Voter registration system experiences ‘intermittent issues’ | Allison Ross/Tampa Bay Times

Florida’s online voter registration system began experiencing “intermittent issues” Sunday that could have kept some residents from registering to vote online. Some users who went to RegistertovoteFlorida.gov on Sunday encountered a 503 error saying the service was unavailable. The Florida Department of State said Sunday evening that some users experienced issues but others have been able to submit voter registration applications. It said Sunday evening that the site appeared to be up and running. A reporter briefly encountered the error Monday morning, but the website came up when the site was refreshed. The state has added a notification to the website apologizing for any inconvenience and saying it’s working to resolve the issue “as expeditiously as possible.” It has not responded to a question of what caused the problem. The website issue comes at a time when some of the other channels for registering to vote are less available.

Florida: Florida held its primary despite coronavirus. Two Broward County poll workers tested positive for COVID-19 | David Smiley and Bianca Padro Ocasio/Miami Herald

Two poll workers who spent Florida’s primary day at precincts in the city of Hollywood have tested positive for coronavirus, the Broward County Supervisor of Elections said Thursday. According to a spokesman for Supervisor Pete Antonacci, the office learned over the last 24 hours that two workers have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The workers, who have not been identified, worked March 17 at precincts at the Martin Luther King Community Center and the David Park Community Center, both in the city of Hollywood. Spokesman Steve Vancore said the elections office — which oversees voting in one of the Florida counties hit hardest by the global pandemic — does not know when the workers contracted the virus. But he said their contact with voters was limited. “We just don’t know, did they contract it after or before? That’s between them and their physician,” Vancore said. “It’s just something that can’t be known, at least not to us. We just felt it was important to notify the public and, of course, their fellow poll workers who were there.”

Florida: On eve of vote, election chiefs, campaigns adjust to coronavirus | Antonio Fins and Christine Stapleton/The Palm Beach Post

Florida elections officials will hold the primary on Tuesday. But questions about turnout, polling locations and poll workers abounded statewide on Monday for an election that could decide the Democratic presidential nomination. On the eve of a consequential Florida primary, campaign staffers rallied their volunteers, party officials again called for a list of polling place changes and elections officials worked feverishly to enlist extra poll workers. Turnout is impossible to predict, but as of Monday 1.9 million Floridians had cast a ballot by mail or during the early voting window that closed on Sunday evening. State Democratic Party officials say that more than 100,000 Floridians who may be voting in-person on Tuesday have had their precincts changed. They again demanded Monday that Florida’s secretary of state release a master list of substitute statewide polling locations to avoid confusion and voter disenfranchisement. The one sure thing: The primary election is a go and polls will open in Florida at 7 a.m. Tuesday. Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee, along with counterparts in Arizona and Illinois have made that clear enough.