The Florida Senate added a controversial last-minute amendment to a sweeping elections bill Tuesday. Elections supervisors were dismayed by the move. The late-filed amendment would give the secretary of state, a political appointee of the governor, power over local supervisors of election.

The secretary of state could place county supervisors on "non-compliant status" for incompetence, fine them and require them to take extra training. Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican, is the amendment's sponsor. He also sponsored the 2011 bill that many blame for the long waits Florida voters endured on Election Day. Diaz de la Portilla said most county supervisors did their jobs in 2012.

"But you had five counties where those supervisors of elections fell short",  Diaz de la Portilla said. "And so this is an additional incentive to those and all other supervisors, all 67 to basically follow what the law requires them to follow."

The amendment passed, to the consternation of elections supervisors in the Senate gallery. Afterward, Senate President Don Gaetz explained his vote against it.

"…because I felt that supervisors of elections, as elected constitutional officers, ought not to be under too much a thumb by an appointed official at the state level", Gaetz said.

The bill would expand early voting sites and require 8 days of early voting for at least 8 hours a day. Elections supervisors could extend early voting to 14 days, including the Sunday before the election.