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Elections Chief Changes Absentee Ballot Drop-off Rules

Steve Garfield
/
Flickr/Creative Commons

The state’s election chief changed some absentee ballot rules this week.

In a memo to the state’s 67 elections supervisors, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner issued new restrictions on how people can return completed absentee ballots during elections.

Detzner’s order states supervisors can no longer allow voters to drop off their absentee ballots anywhere other than their supervisor’s office.

This change has already concerned some officials and has some voting rights groups worried.

Baylor Johnson, a spokesman for the ACLU of Florida, said this will affect supervisors of large counties who have set up absentee ballot drop-off sites to make voting easier.

“It’s important to remember that absentee voting many people who would have otherwise had a hardship making their voice in our elections,” he said. “It allows these people to participate in our democracy and if Secretary Detzner has his way those sites that have benefited these people will be shut down.”

Johnson said the good news for his group is that Detzner’s order is not legally binding. 

Ashley Lopez is a reporter forWGCUNews. A native of Miami, she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a journalism degree.
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