Published on July 13, 2023 at 12:31 pm
If you prefer to vote by mail — and many people do — you may not realize that your request for a ballot might have expired.
Under a Florida law approved two years ago, requests for mail ballots are good for only one general election cycle. So unless you signed up for a vote-by-mail ballot for last spring’s election, your request has expired.
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Duval County voters should have received a reminder in January. The mailer told them to complete and mail back the form, call the office at (904) 255-8683 (VOTE) or go to duvalelections.gov. The office will do another push to alert voters about mail ballots this fall.
Voters who want to request a mail ballot must give the elections office either the last four digits of their Social Security number or their Florida driver’s license or state identification card number. That number must match what the elections office has on file in order for the request to be processed.
Nearly 44,000 people voted by mail in Duval County’s last election — 20% of everyone who voted.
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Duval County voters have three elections in the next cycle in 2024: the presidential primary on March 19, the primary election Aug. 20 and the general election on Nov. 5. After the 2024 general election, all vote-by-mail requests will expire, the supervisor’s office said.
One other recent change in state election law placed restrictions on voter-registration groups. The change survived a federal legal challenge.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker denied a request by the League of Women Voters of Florida for a preliminary injunction against two parts of the law that the group contends violate First Amendment rights. One part requires representatives of voter-registration groups to provide receipts to people who sign up to vote. The other part prevents people with certain felony convictions from “collecting or handling” voter-registration applications.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law in May, making changes in Florida’s elections system that primarily focus on “third-party” voter registration groups.
DeSantis and other state Republican leaders argued, in part, that the law was needed to ensure that elections are secure. But voter-registration groups, including the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and Hispanic Federations, said third-party registration groups play an important role in signing up Hispanic and Black voters.
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