It was a made-for-TV moment: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing a voting restriction bill based on Donald Trump’s election lies, live on Trump’s favorite show, surrounded by a cheering crowd in Trump’s adopted home county of Palm Beach. “Me signing this bill here says, ‘Florida, your vote counts,’” he said after enacting the voting restrictions live on Fox & Friends Thursday. “‘Your vote is going to be cast with integrity and transparency, and this is a great place for democracy.’”
DeSantis made Florida the latest state to translate Trump’s bogus fraud claims into law. And while the Florida legislation doesn’t go quite as far as the package of voting restrictions that Georgia lawmakers passed earlier this spring, it could make it more difficult for Sunshine State voters to cast ballots. “The new law has limitations that are unreasonable and extremely confusing,” Broward County elections supervisor Joe Scott told the Miami Herald. “That confusion in effect will lead to voter suppression. Many voters who don’t understand the rules will decide not to participate at all.”
The new law, Senate Bill 90, tightens voter identification requirements, adds restrictions to mail-in voting and the use of drop boxes, and expands partisan challenges to ballot tabulation. DeSantis falsely framed the legislation as necessary to ensure “election integrity.” “This keeps us ahead of the curve,” he said. But the mere circumstances of the signing betrayed the righteous rhetoric: Local media was kept out of the event, outlets told CNN, and it was instead billed as a Fox News exclusive. DeSantis said his move strengthened democracy—but was only willing to tout it in front of the home crowd on Fox & Friends.
Marc Elias and several voting-rights groups immediately filed a lawsuit against Florida over the restrictions, writing that SB90 “purports to solve problems that do not exist, caters to a dangerous lie about the 2020 election that threatens our most basic democratic values, and, in the end, makes it harder to vote without adequate justification for doing so.” Moreover, the law “does not impede all Florida’s voters equally,” the suit added, arguing that the restrictions would place added burdens on those who already face “substantial hurdles to reach the ballot box”—“Florida’s seniors, youngest voters, and minority voters.”
Limiting voter turnout, particularly among demographics that lean Democratic, has long been a key GOP strategy. But the effort has become even more transparent in the Trump era, as the party increasingly turns its back on democratic norms to embrace its demagogic leader. The spectacle of these bill signings has seemed designed to mock the very democratic values the legislation purports to reinforce: a Black state representative being dragged away in handcuffs for knocking on the door to Governor Brian Kemp’s office as he signed Georgia’s draconian anti-voting bill into law; a smug DeSantis signing off on Florida’s restrictions in front of members of the Trump fan group Club 45 USA while members of the press were kept outside. “A lot of great folks down here in Palm Beach County,” DeSantis said as the crowd behind him cheered. “Thanks guys.”
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