Election officials in Florida are concerned that Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) new ballot rule could force them to break existing laws in the Sunshine State.
State election officials gathered for their summer meeting, which also included Secretary of State Cord Byrd and other top officials. Many of the election supervisors voiced their concerns that the new rule would require them to be in violation of a state constitutional law protecting a voter’s right to a secret ballot, per Politico.
The controversial ballot rule requires poll workers to cut off the four corners of a ballot that a voter returned because they made a mistake. The workers are then required to place the “spoiled” ballot in an envelope, thus preventing it from being counted.
However, several supervisor officials pointed out the difficulty of poll workers cutting off the ballot’s corners without seeing a voter’s choices, which would violate the secret ballot rule.
“You do not touch a ballot that has voter marks on it,” Mark Earley, the Leon County elections supervisor, told the outlet.
However, Joseph Van de Bogart, general counsel for the Department of State, did not agree that the secret ballot law applied to “spoiled” ballots.
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Many election supervisors were said to be worried that their failure to comply with the “spoiled” ballot rule could result in their terminations. DeSantis has already removed the Palm Beach County elections supervisor for failing to meet deadlines during recounts after November’s election in 2018.
In the last few years, DeSantis has cracked down on matters of election integrity. In 2022, he called on the state legislature to create an office within the executive branch that has the power to investigate and enforce election-related crimes. Not long after, the newly created security office charged 20 Florida residents with felonies related to voter fraud in the state’s five largest counties.
