Mail ballot requests plunge in Florida following change to law

The number of voters asking to vote by mail has dropped sharply in Central Florida this year in the wake of a controversial change to election law that wiped out previous paperwork and required new ballot requests be filed.

The massive drop — less than half as many requests as filed in 2022 — gained renewed attention this week following a mistake by the Orange County Elections office, which posted the wrong deadline for voters to sign up to vote by mail in the August primary.

Democrats running to lead the office criticized both elections supervisor Glen Gilzean, a Republican, for the error and the law itself for its effect on voters, worrying the situation will diminish voter turnout.

Wes Hodge, a supervisor candidate and former chair of the Orange County Democrats, said the mistake showed “there are no checks and balances in place” in the office, and it could exacerbate the law’s impact.

“I’ve been out knocking on thousands of doors and most of them don’t know,” he said. “People aren’t realizing it until they don’t get their ballot in the mail.”

Due to the law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, the nearly 3 million Floridians who voted by mail in 2022 had their ballot requests wiped out at the beginning of 2023. They need to sign up again, if they haven’t already, in order to cast mail ballots this year.

Then the cycle repeats itself in January 2025, and every two years after that, with requests needing to be made leading up to each midterm and presidential election.

DeSantis, a Republican, first praised how the 2020 election was conducted in Florida, but then began to push for “election integrity” following former President Donald Trump’s false claims of vote-by-mail fraud. The 2021 law was the first of three elections bills aimed in part at restricting mail-in voting.

As of Wednesday, 74,974 Orange County voters had requested a vote-by-mail ballot for the August election, according to elections office spokesman Christopher Heath, fewer than half of the 195,935 who had requested one in 2022 or the 214,555 who had requested one in 2020.

Osceola, Seminole and Lake counties saw similar drop-offs. Only 34,403 voters requested mail ballots in Osceola compared to more than 80,000 in 2022, while 48,624 signed up for mail ballots in Seminole compared to nearly 94,000 in 2022.

Lake County saw 27,000 signups as of Wednesday, compared to 50,530 requests in 2022.

While those numbers will rise as the primary and general elections near, Daniel A. Smith, chair of the political science department at the University of Florida, said the drop-off was an inevitable result of the legislation.

“Laws have consequences, and the passage of Senate Bill 90 following the 2020 general election certainly was a full frontal assault on the use of vote-by-mail ballots in Florida,” Smith said.

The change, he added, largely affects less frequent voters, including many independents who don’t vote in primary elections. This year, Democrats didn’t hold a presidential primary in Florida either, potentially leading to less sign-ups for that party.

Smith also cited data he obtained from the Florida Department of State that indicated thousands and potentially millions of registered voters didn’t have the updated driver’s licenses necessary to vote by mail, or have invalid licenses or Social Security numbers.

“It raises suspicions and distrust of the election electoral process,” Smith said. “And Florida has enough of that already.”

In a Facebook post earlier this week, Gilzean reminded Orange County voters about the deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot for the August 20 primary, claiming the it was on July 22. But the actual deadline to request a mail ballot is Aug. 8, 12 days before the election.

Heath said the mistake was “human error,” adding that information was deleted and the correct deadline was posted. July 22 is an important election date, but it’s the deadline to register to vote or switch parties for the August primary.

“This year we have seen a sharp drop in the number of people requesting vote-by-mail ballots,” Gilzean said in an emailed statement, “and while more people may be opting to vote in person, we want to make sure any voter who wants to vote by mail knows the approaching deadlines for the primary.”

“We are pleased to offer many ways for voters to make their voices heard, from vote-by-mail to early voting to local precincts on election day,” Gilzean said.

Gilzean is not running for a full term for the position he was appointed to by DeSantis in March. Four Democrats and an independent are vying for the job.

Dan Helm, another Democrat seeking the supervisor job, said the office “has an obligation to be clear about those deadlines.” The elections office did update its incorrect post quickly, he said, “but it shouldn’t have gone out in the first place.”