Miami Independent: Questions continue to swirl around Florida election bill SB7050 sponsored by Senator Travis Hutson. Sen. Hutson stated the bill was created by Secretary of State Cord Byrd, the Florida Supervisors of Elections (FSE) and other legislators. Interestingly enough he did not mention any input was adopted from the public or election integrity advocacy groups.
SB7050 contains a clause that allows Gov. DeSantis to run for President while remaining Governor. The clause should have been decoupled from the other election bill provisions that raise questions remaining to be answered or resolved before Gov. DeSantis signs the bill.
While the bill certainly contains some minor election integrity improvements, it also appears to contain provisions that remove transparency and public visibility into the elections process. These provisions seem to be far more damaging than the new improvements the bill provides.
The decrease in transparency is particularly of concern in light of the recent discovery of thousands of blank voted ballots in Broward and other counties for Florida’s last major election. These generated an unbelievable 10% or more blank ballots cast as previously reported.
At a minimum, the voters of Florida deserve concrete answers to the following questions about SB 7050:
Why is the requirement for a voter to return an address confirmation request being eliminated? (See line 328)
Why does the bill eliminate sending an address confirmation final notice when there is no response from a voter to an address confirmation request? (See line 301)
Why is duplicate registration data received from another state or entity so confidential that it should not be subject to Florida Open Government Sunset Review Act? (See line 347)
Why is there no longer a requirement to produce voting history within 30 days after election certification? (See line 817). MORE