Twenty years in the past, it took 5 weeks of Florida recounts and court docket battles earlier than Republican George W. Bush prevailed over Democrat Al Gore by 537 votes within the presidential race. The Florida recount demanded by the Gore marketing campaign famously centered on issues with outmoded punch-card ballots with canvassers attempting to determine a voter’s intent amid ballots with “hanging chads” and “dimpled chads” on the playing cards. The case wound up within the U.S. Supreme Court docket, which halted the recount and handed the presidency to Bush.
Gruters and different Republicans contend that the proposals are a part of the high-quality tuning that should happen “to make sure that we’ve got integrity within the system.”
However critics have contended that Republicans had been rewriting elections legal guidelines to erase the benefit Democrats have gained in voting by mail.
Tens of millions of so-called absentee voters participated in the course of the pandemic, casting ballots by mail or submitting their ballots at drop containers exterior elections places of work or at early voting websites.
In all, some 4.8 million Floridians voted by mail in November, a file quantity that accounted for about 44% of the 11 million votes solid.
Florida Democrats outvoted Republicans by mail by 680,000 extra absentee ballots. President Donald Trump nonetheless gained Florida by about 3%, however the Democratic benefit prompted alarm amongst Republicans who lengthy had the higher hand in absentee voting.
