Man, Rick Scott loves to screw with voters. It's like a hobby of his (aside from screwing the poor and screwing the environment and screwing the state, in general).
First he shortened early voting days, then tried to go after minority voters via an arbitrary and contrived "voter fraud" crusade.
And now, he's messing with absentee voters.
Rick Scott has hit the hat trick of fucking with voters!
::CONFETTI::
On Monday, Scott's chief elections official issued an order to all 67 elections supervisors that imposes new restrictions on how and where voters can return their completed absentee ballots.
And how many elections supervisors did Scott's Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, consult about these new restrictions?
None. None election supervisors would be the correct answer.
Now anyone who wants to vote by mail will need to return ballots to elections offices only, as opposed to dropping them off at places that were more convenient for them.
Because, apparently, absentee ballots are the scourge of the nation and need to be monitored with the utmost scrutiny!
Detzner's reasoning behind this has something to do with "uniformity" and "election laws" and some such nonsense. But really, it's just more voter suppression.
Voting in Florida is already a chore. What better way to keep people from voting than by making it an even bigger pain in the ass than it already is?
Even though voter fraud is literally not at all a problem in any way, shape, or form in Florida, Scott and his cronies have made it their mission in life to tackle it anyway!
Because, uniformity.
Meanwhile, elections officials are stupefied.
Volusia County's Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall told Think Progress she was surprised by the ruling. "Why create a problem when none currently exists?" she said. "If the Secretary of State were to call me, I would ask why not wait until the winter conference in a few weeks to get ideas from the [Supervisors of Elections]?"
Pasco Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley told the Tampa Bay Times that the order shows a lack of knowing just how elections are run.
"I have the utmost respect for Secretary Detzner," he said. "But he has never run an election and this directive appears to show that. It does give me pause as being anti-voter, and that greatly concerns me."
"The potential effect on voters is that it reduces opportunities for them to return their ballots," Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark told the Tampa Bay Times, saying she was not consulted by the state.
She then added, "This is not promoting ballot accessibility. I'm very worried about this. I'm just stunned."
So why lay down this law now? Rep. C.W. Bill Young recently kicking the bucket might have something to do with it.
His death has left a vacant seat in Pinellas County's 13th Congressional District, and a special election to replace him will be going down real soon.
Young, a Republican, held that seat with a gargantuan monkey-fist grip, while the GOPers have had the seat for decades.
Now, it's up for grabs, and many believe it's a toss-up as to which party can win it.
The special election just so happens to fall on January 14.
Add that to this fascinating stat: More people voted by mail in Pinellas County than any other Florida county during the 2012 elections.
BUT THIS IS ALL PURELY COINCIDENTAL, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG. UNIFORMITY!
See also: -Rick Scott Has Decided to Resume His Dumb Voter Purge -Rick Scott Signs Bill That Extends Early Voting Days, Two Years After He Shortened Them -Rick Scott's Voter Purge Crusade Is Going on Tour
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