New Vote by Mail Laws

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School Board Candidate - Cindy Gibbs

Come get a yard sign! Thanks for those of you who have put one in your yard, but we need more out there! Rosario and Corbin are definitely outnumbering Cindy. Please show your support for our candidates by putting a sign in your yard! They are free! Come by the office to get one today!

Thanks to all of you who cramped your hands up with writing postcards for Cindy! You sent out nearly 3,000 to voters! Awesome work!

ASKS OF THE WEEK

1. DOOR HANGERS! DOOR HANGERS! DOOR HANGERS! We are down to the wire and need help hanging door hangers on doors for Cindy. Just walk your neighborhood and hang a door hanger on the doors of your neighbors. It helps spread the word and gives Cindy some exposure. Come by the office and pick up some door hangers for Cindy!

If you don’t want to go by yourself, join us on Tuesday’s in Vero and Thursday’s in Sebastian as we door hang around the county.

Sign up here to door hang every Tuesday evening in Vero Beach with Cindy here: Door Hang for Cindy - Vero Beach · Democrats of Indian River (mobilize.us)

Sign up here to door hang every Thursday evening in Sebastian with Cindy here: Door Hang for Cindy - Sebastian · Democrats of Indian River (mobilize.us)

Donate! Cindy’s campaign can accept donations of up to $1,000 for both the primary election (up to August 23^rd) and then again before the November 8^th general election. Use this ActBlue link:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/cynthia-gibbs-for-school-board-1
and share it with your friends, family and neighbors. Checks can be written to Cynthia Gibbs Campaign Account for up to $1,000.

Karen Greb - Florida House District 34 Race

Karen is the Democratic candidate running for Florida House District 34 and you will vote for her in November. She will face off against the Republican candidate for the seat – either Robbie Brackett or Karen Hiltz – which will be decided in the primary.

This week, Karen attended a well-attended and productive Precinct Captain’s meeting, has plans to speak to the Barefoot Bay Democratic Club, and will be meeting soon with Democratic organizer Kelly Bess.

Please like Karen’s Facebook Page at: https://www.facebook.com/GrebForFlorida

GET INVOLVED

The 2022 Voter Protection Team for the Democrats of Indian River continues to prepare for August's early voting and primary. If you are interested in helping ensure that every legitimate vote counts, please click on the link to sign up: https://floridadems.typeform.com/to/eB1DoQhN

You will be contacted about a Zoom training and when you want to be scheduled at the polls. Early voting is Aug. 13-20, 7 am to 4 pm. The primary will be held Aug. 23, 7 am to 7 pm. The Voter Protection Team will also be involved in the general election early voting days and Election Day in October and November.

For further information, please contact Claudia Martino at [email protected]

DEMOCRATS OF INDIAN RIVER

Democratic Women’s Club

The Book Club will meet at the Indian River County Main Library on the first floor Meeting Room on August 26th from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

“Beloved” by author Toni Morrison will be discussed.

Any questions about the book group can be addressed to Maryann and Rita at [email protected]

Young Democrats of the Treasure Coast

We have several great candidates in the three counties that we operate in who need as much help as possible texting, phone banking, getting out mailers and knocking on doors to get people out to vote in the August primary. Anyone who can volunteer for any of our candidates is strongly encouraged to get involved with a campaign or their local DECs and volunteer to help these candidates win.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

This week we highlight two letters from fellow Democrats. Remember, if we stay quiet and don’t speak out, we become complacent. PLEASE write a letter to the editor and speak up. If you would like to write a letter to the editor, you can submit your letter here:
https://static.tcpalm.com/forms/?wid=q1jkscld1v7h87e

We must defer to those with experience, training in education

Parental rights extremism wrongs children, parents, and all of society.

The endless parental-rights shrieks — parents are experts, unheard and unheeded; parents know best their children’s needs; schools must not “co-parent;” teachers are overpaid baby sitters — nothing more than lies pushed by self-serving extremists.

The parental rights agenda is empty of what our children actually need — tools, knowledge, and life-skills to become productive, responsible citizens.

My children’s journey in our public schools may be challenging. They may struggle. They may have to think about and face things that are uncomfortable. But the journey is vital.

We must defer to those with experience and formal training. Parents cannot be experts on everything.

The extremist parental rights agenda distracts, making it even harder for children to find their place in the world, as plumbers, nurses, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents, etc. Students around the world focus on learning science, history and politics. Our children cannot compete from a bubble of false praise, watered down history, and weakened curricula. Math, science and social skills of U.S. children are embarrassingly low.
Schools are not for the benefit or pleasure of any one parent. Society is the primary beneficiary, not parents. Schools educate and prepare future generations, just as my school educated me, to become responsible citizens.

Our schools will only truly function when we accept reality. There is no boogeyman in every textbook, teacher, library, administrator, or classroom. Don’t take the bait. Be thoughtful. Don’t throw away a vote on friends or a catchphrase.

Demand the extremist, out-of-touch minority stop the drama; demand schools focus on the best curriculum and support. Vote out self-serving elected officials.

When schools do their job, our educated, intelligent children will take care of us when we need them most.

David Dinan, Vero Beach

Are Christian Nationalists Christian?

Jesus didn't hate the Jews, He was one. He didn't preach hate of those not like himself, only love. He didn't wield a sword against his enemies or his neighbors. He didn't encourage his followers to punish others in his name. He did not involve himself in the politics of the Roman Empire. He loved his neighbors, and his enemies. He preached treating others like you yourself would like to be treated.

Perhaps I have a misunderstanding of the Christian Nationalist movement, but their ideology espousing an America where the government is subservient to the Church, made up of only Christians, and imposing its moral code on the population, seems counter to the teachings of Jesus.

Paul Milelli, Vero Beach

FEDERAL

This week there were Primary’s in Kansas, Arizona, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. Some highlights:

Kansas voted to keep abortion protections in the State Constitution, a major victory for abortion rights in a red state.
In Arizona, a Donald Trump-backed newcomer won the Republican Senate nomination. A 2020 election denier became the party’s choice for secretary of state.
In Michigan, Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump, lost his primary.
Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality who has questioned the 2020 election results, will face Democrat Gretchen Whitmer in the Michigan governor’s race.
Eric Greitens, a scandal-ridden former governor, lost Missouri’s Republican Senate primary.

Here are some key takeaways from those races.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-takeaways-from-kansas-michigan-missouri-arizona-and-washington-primaries/ar-AA10fn1F?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=070f0a92fceb4cfc929b62b53d067fee

STATE

Don’t say ‘drop box’: Why mail voting in Florida is more complicated, constrained in 2022

By Lindsey Leake, Treasure Coast Newspapers

Perhaps in 2020 you were one of nearly 166,000 Treasure Coast residents who voted by mail in the general election. Instead of returning your ballot through the U.S. Postal Service, maybe you slipped it into a drop box — at whatever time of day or night you pleased.

It won’t be so convenient this year.

Neither video surveillance nor the presence of a sworn law enforcement officer is sufficient to ensure you lawfully deposit your ballot, as before. You’ll now do so under the watchful eye of an elections office employee, only on select dates during select times at select locations.

These are but a handful of the new mail voting regulations conjured by the Florida Legislature. Senate Bills 90 and 524, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in 2021 and 2022, respectively, have been met with the ire of not only Democratic foes but also nonpartisan and civil rights organizations.

“The Florida Legislature, motivated by former President (Donald) Trump’s false claims of election fraud, has taken action to roll back some of the voting reforms that were put in place leading up to the (2020) election,” said Ben Wilcox, research director and co-founder of nonpartisan government watchdog Integrity Florida.

In theory, voting by mail remains straightforward: Request a ballot, fill it out and mail it back, making your voice heard from home or an ocean away.

Yet what may seem like trivial additions to the requesting procedure and minor restrictions to ballot submission render mail voting an insurmountable hurdle for a swath of the Sunshine State electorate.

Mail voter ID laws: security or suppression?
Voters must request ballots twice as often

Registering to vote in Florida already required a citizen’s driver’s license or state-issued identification card number, or last four digits of their Social Security number. Those wishing to vote in the 2022 primary and beyond now must provide one of the three identifiers more frequently.

It’s mandatory each time they request a mail ballot in person or via phone, and when they ask that a ballot be sent somewhere other than the address on file; only overseas and uniformed services voters are exempt from the latter. A voter whose immediate family member requests a mail ballot on their behalf also must supply such ID.

“Florida’s leaders have answered the call to ensure that our elections process remains secure and credible,” Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Lady Lake, said in a May 2021 statement following S.B. 90’s passage. He thanked DeSantis for “helping us make Florida a place where it is easy to vote and very hard to cheat.”

Was the sanctity of Florida elections so threatened?

In the 2018 primary, voters in Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties collectively requested over 78,000 mail ballots, according to Florida Division of Elections records. This primary season, over 125,000 had requested one as of 8 a.m. July 28, with 17 request days remaining.

Elections supervisors attribute that 60% increase, and the 59% statewide jump, to COVID-19.

The coronavirus pandemic spurred some states to broaden vote-by-mail opportunities in 2020. However, “the expansion of voting by mail has rekindled the long-standing debate between proponents of election security and accessibility,” noted American Statistical Association researchers.

Does voting by mail heighten voter fraud? The answer is a resounding no, according to the statisticians’ 2021 study published in the journal Statistics and Public Policy. They analyzed over 2,200 voter fraud claims in local, state and federal elections nationwide, from 2000-19.

“We find no evidence that fraud is more prevalent among [states that provide ballots upon request] or [states that automatically send ballots],” they wrote, “or that fraud has increased as vote-by-mail policies have expanded.”

Election 2022: What changed in Florida's election laws

New election laws have made changes to how you can vote in Florida for the 2022 election. Here's what you need to know.

Mail voting reform, particularly since 2020, largely has followed partisan lines. Liberal states have made voting by mail easier in the name of equity, while conservative states, citing tampering concerns, have made it more difficult.

The Florida Division of Elections referred 75 fraud complaints to law enforcement in 2020, equal to 0.001% of the over 11 million ballots cast in the general election. Proponents of legislative reform at once lauded Florida’s track record of secure elections and defended the need for more restrictions.

“When it comes to the integrity of our free and fair elections, our state did not wait until something went wrong,” wrote Baxley, chair of the Committee on Ethics and Elections. “Instead we were proactive in our responsibility to ensure that Florida voters are confident that their vote is being counted.”

Voters must request ballots twice as often

While nearly two dozen states mail ballots to all voters in specific elections and circumstances, eight, including Colorado, send them to every elector in all elections.

In 2013, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law the Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act, in which the Colorado General Assembly deemed it “appropriate to expand the use of mail ballot elections as a means to increase voter participation.”

By contrast, Floridians may vote by mail only if they request a ballot for a given election or cycle.

They previously could request ballots for all contests through the following two general elections, which occur in even-numbered years. In 2019, for example, a voter could submit a single request for primary and general election mail ballots through the 2020 and 2022 cycles.

Voters now must request mail ballots twice as often: each election cycle instead of every other. In other words, every two years instead of every four.

Those who requested mail ballots through the 2022 general election before May 6, 2021, were grandfathered in and don’t need to submit an additional request.

The Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union called the change, if nothing else, “a completely unnecessary administrative hurdle.”

Political director Kirk Bailey said in a March 2021 statement, “Laws like S.B. 90 are a part of a nationwide voter suppression wave that is a direct response to citizens exercising their fundamental right to vote.

“These lawmakers have one goal in mind: to make it more difficult for people to vote.”

Requesting a ballot requires at minimum a computer with internet access, a telephone or the means to travel to an elections office — luxuries not readily available to every Florida voter.

Introducing ‘secure ballot intake stations’

Remember those official receptacles scattered throughout the county, where you could return your completed mail ballot around the clock?

“We can’t, statutorily, call them ‘drop boxes’ anymore,” said Vicki Davis, Martin County elections supervisor.

S.B. 524 replaced each constitutional mention of “drop box” with “secure ballot intake station.” Semantics aside, the bigger impact is on accessibility.

In the past, drop boxes were open 24/7 for weeks ahead of an election, depending on the county. In the 2022 primary, they’ll be available throughout the Treasure Coast — only during the Aug. 13-20 early voting period, at early voting locations or elections offices, during designated hours, with elections staff present.

Though law stipulates drop-off stations be “geographically located so as to provide all voters in the county with an equal opportunity to cast a ballot,” that does little good when they’re open a relatively brief 64 hours in St. Lucie and 72 in Martin and Indian River, across eight days.

Local elections officials are doing what they can to encourage robust voter participation amid newfound limitations. Indian River stations open at 7 a.m., the earliest in the region. St. Lucie added a sixth location, at the Indian River State College campus in Port St. Lucie, while Martin added second and third locations in Indiantown and Hobe Sound.

“This’ll be the first time that we’ve had three early voting sites for the primary,” said Kherri Anderson, Martin deputy of elections outreach, acknowledging some voters “might not be able to get to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (in Stuart), where our office is located.”

The new legislation also hampers the efforts of third-party voter registration organizations, such as the League of Women Voters of St. Lucie County. The group previously could return completed mail ballots en masse, such as those collected at an assisted living facility, said President Sabrina Taylor.

Now, it’s a felony to possess more than two ballots other than yours or an immediate family member’s.

“That’s why it’s so important … we’re out educating people about the changes,” Taylor said. “To make sure that everybody is in compliance.”

Imploring voters to simply return their ballots in the mail may seem an obvious solution to the controversy surrounding equitable drop box access.

One reason drop boxes exist, however, is because some voters can’t afford return postage. In turn, they may lack transportation to an elections office or early voting location, further obstructing their right to vote.

While voters can electronically track their ballot, some favor the satisfaction of hand delivery, doubtful it would otherwise safely arrive at the elections office.

However Florida voters cast their mail ballots in the Aug. 23 primary, they, elections officials and third-party political organizations alike await uncharted waters.

“There’s a lot of concern,” Taylor said.

LOCAL

There is an opportunity to meet US Senate candidate Val Demings in Fort Pierce on Thursday, August 4th, at 8:00pm. The event will take place at the Havert L. Fenn Center, located at 2000 Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce, FL 34982. Anyone who wishes to attend can register for the event at the following link:

https://mobilize.us/valdemings/event/484941

CALENDAR

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

6:00 p.m. - Sebastian City Council

For agenda and meeting information go to https://www.cityofsebastian.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=343&month=2&year=2021&day=17&calType=0

TIDBITS

Why are these monkeys stealing from tourists? And how do you get your stuff back? Find out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q1MyVUze8M

Office Hours

Our regular office hours are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Our address is 2345 14^th Ave., Suite 7, Downtown Vero Beach. Our phone number is 772-226-5267.

That's all Democrats!
Stay Safe out There!

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2345 14th Ave.

Suite 7

Vero Beach, FL 32960

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