Rep. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville, once ran against Mike Hogan for Duval Elections Supervisor. While Hogan won, the two are at odds over Davis’ bill offering voters an additional option for early voting.
Davis is Duval’s former Deputy Supervisor of Elections and worked for the office in varying roles for 14 years. Her bill would allow voters to drop off mail-in ballots at any early voting site in their county. Currently, Duval voters can only mail them in or take them to the elections office downtown.
“It could be something simple as the voter walking in, the voter giving the ballot to an elections official that’s already working at the early voting site and then the ballot is secured just like a provisional ballot,” Davis said.
Meanwhile, Hogan is against the mandate.
“There are a whole host of problems that can occur by creating this additional option,” Hogan said in a phone interview. “It’s like trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.”
A provisional ballot is used when voting eligibility cannot be confirmed at the voting precinct. About half of Florida counties already allow variations of absentee ballot drop-offs. Davis’ bill would require all counties allow them to be taken to early voting locations.
But after the Florida House approved Davis’s bill, the Senate version now lacks the requirement, after Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, spoke with Duval’s elections office.
“They’ve asked me ‘could we make it optional?’ “Bean said at the last Senate committee meeting when the amendment passed.
Hogan said one problem the bill doesn’t address is training or procedures for elections workers.
“Whatever the procedures are there will be some kind of cost. It would go up based on what the procedures are,” he said.
Davis, who used to train poll workers, said the process could be the same as the one used for provisional ballots — they’d be sealed, secured and sent to be counted. “The training of this is very minimal,” she said.
Still, Hogan is wary of giving people the option because he said errors, like double votes, are more easily caught and corrected in the voting booth. He said if it were dropped off with errors, it wouldn't be counted.
“That person is at an early voting site and could, in five minutes, vote and they’re just going to drop off a ballot?” Hogan said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
He said Duval also pays postage for early voting ballots and the ability to drop them off is just not necessary.
Davis said the additional option is helpful for someone who is still holding onto their ballot a few days before Election Day and might not want to risk the elections office not receiving it in time to be counted.
“In my mind that person would not stand in line, they would just take their ballot into the early voting site and give it to one of the elections officials and keep it going,” Davis said.
Davis calls Hogan’s request disappointing.
“Duval county of all counties, being my county wanting to have that ability to opt out, I think the message it sends is not a positive one,” she said.
Hogan said opting out wouldn’t create an access issue. He added Duval has the highest number of early voting sites per capita in the state. He said if the bill passes, he may still choose to participate in new option once he knows more about the required training.
The Senate bill, with Bean’s amendment, has one more committee to pass on Tuesday before it reaches the chamber floor.
Davis said if the opt-out stipulation carries, she hopes most counties will opt in.
Photo: “Georgetown Branch Early Voting 2016” used under Creative Commons.
Reporter Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride.
