The latest election-related demand from Gov. Rick Scott’s secretary of state — a directive this week ordering officials to stop accepting voters’ absentee ballots at drop-off sites — didn’t go over well with elections supervisors or voting-rights activists. Then again, not much of what Secretary of State Ken Detzner has proposed to reform voting in Florida has gone over well with those groups. Particularly not with Volusia elections supervisor Ann McFall. “This is the bully pulpit that the supervisors have found themselves dealing with,” McFall said of Detzner’s new order — one she said her election workers might not even comply with. “I’d be willing to challenge it,” she added. “I feel that strongly about it.”
Detzner issued the directive Monday to elections officials in all 67 Florida counties. In it, he wrote that they should “not solicit return of absentee ballots at any place other than a supervisor’s office, except for the purpose of having the absentee ballot canceled if the voter wants to vote in person.”
Scott’s administration has insisted it is working to eliminate voter fraud. Critics argue the changes suppress the vote.
It remains to be seen whether everyone obeys Detzner’s directive. McFall’s challenge aside, the ACLU of Florida’s director of legal operations, Nancy Abudu, released a statement arguing the order “is not binding” and county supervisors can still “decide what is best for the voters in their respective counties.”
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