Governor Ron DeSantis has made voting easier in certain Florida counties battered by Hurricane Ian – but only Republican-leaning ones.
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.
“Tens of thousands of Floridians have been displaced, and today’s executive order fails to meet the moment and ensure voting access for all Florida voters,” said Jasmine Burney-Clark, founder of voter rights organization Equal Ground, in a statement. “Instead, Governor DeSantis is politicizing a natural disaster.”
In the emergency order, DeSantis said the decision to only accommodate three counties was based on “based on the collective feedback of the Supervisors of Elections across the state and at the written requests of the Supervisors of Elections in Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties”, the Post reported.
But Burney-Clark said that the decision to exclude other counties “will remain yet another example of Governor DeSantis disenfranchising voters”.
The governor had previously declined to make adjustments in voting laws during other statewide emergences, including at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite requests from local election officials.
DeSantis and Florida Republicans have also enacted a number of laws that restrict voting in the past two years, including one measure that bans anyone helping drop off mail-in ballots from having more than two ballots that do not belong to them.