Bill’s voter roll maintenance measures come after Florida withdrew from the Electronic Registration Information Center, a controversial multistate voter-data-sharing partnership.
The Florida Legislature passed a bill last week allowing Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the presidency without resigning from his post — a move widely picked over by state and national political media salivating at the prospect of a Trump-DeSantis duel for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Largely overlooked in the coverage, however, was the measure’s suite of election integrity reforms, which include protections against voter disenfranchisement by voter registration organizations, strict new requirements for voter roll maintenance, and enhanced security of vote-by-mail ballots.
Passed towards the end of the legislative session, Florida Senate Bill 7050 reformed the state’s “resign to run” requirement to accommodate a potential DeSantis presidential bid in 2024. A similar change occurred when then-Gov. Charlie Crist was a potential GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008.
The Florida governor has been traveling around the U.S. and just completed an international trade trip last week to Japan, South Korea, Israel, and the United Kingdom, but has not yet declared his candidacy or intent to run.
In recent polls including both declared and potential candidates for the 2024 GOP presidential nod, DeSantis has been running a distant second to former President Donald Trump, trailing by anywhere from 13 to 33 points.