Republicans for years dominated the absentee-ballot battle space. Then came COVID-19 and the rush to expand voting options to facilitate conducting a general election during a pandemic. Donald Trump lost reelection. Republicans lost control of the U.S. Senate.
Republicans contracted a case of the sads. Their voters want now to contract the ways Americans can cast ballots.
It is legend among Florida Republicans how in 1988 it was late-arriving Republican absentee ballots that turned a narrow U.S. Senate loss for Republican Connie Mack into a 34,518-vote victory, writes Amy Gardner (Washington Post):
Virtually every narrow Republican victor of the past generation — and there have been many, including two of the state’s current top officeholders, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott — owes their victory, at least in part, to mail voting.
Can’t have that anymore now that Democrats have started voting by mail in large numbers. But as Republicans introduce measures to curtail voting by mail, some of their elected officials worry it may hurt their reelection chances.
“Donald Trump attempted to ruin a perfectly safe and trusted method of voting,” said one longtime Republican consultant in the state who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.
“The main law that we pass when we pass election bills in Florida is the law of unintended consequences,” he said. Now, he added, the GOP must live with the result.
I may have to frame that quote.
Florida voters are demanding Republicans do something to restrict voting by mail.
This year’s bill restricts the use of drop boxes, adds hurdles to voting by mail and prohibits actions that could influence those standing in line to vote, which voting rights advocates said will probably discourage nonpartisan groups from offering food or water to voters as they wait under the hot Florida sun.
Together, the provisions compound hurdles for voters, critics said, because the curtailment of mail voting will probably lead to longer lines on Election Day and during early in-person voting, particularly in urban communities that already tend to face long wait times to vote.
Senate Bill 90 requires voters to reapply for mail ballots every two-year election cycle, rather than every two cycles — or four years — as current law allows. The legislation prohibits mobile drop boxes, and it requires local election supervisors to staff all drop boxes and to allow ballots to be dropped in them only during early-voting hours. Supervisors who leave a drop box accessible outside those hours are subject to a civil penalty of $25,000.
Dear Leader created the demand. Elected Republican must furnish the supply of vote-by-mail-quashing bills or face the wrath both of Trump and his faithful. This after decades of Florida Republicans making voting by mail easier, as Gardner details, and by making in-person voting — preferred by Black voters — harder.
“It was comical to watch Trump light on fire 20 years of Republican work and tens of millions of Republican investment — literally lighting a match to it,” Schale said. “Every time he sent a tweet out, I’d get a text from a Republican operative here in Florida with an eye-roll emoji.”
Gardner has much more here.
It was clear from the outset that if Trump lost he would try to light a match to the entire country, Republican Party and all.