Over 100,000 American lives lost and tens of millions being out of work, citizens everywhere have had to make adjustments to their lives to ensure they remain safe. There is no question the pandemic has caused many changes to our society. From new vernacular being added to our everyday language such as “shelter in place” and “social distancing” to Americans across the country making adjustments to their lives to ensure they remain safe. As experts warn of the potential of a second wave, there has emerged a great importance on securing our elections to ensure everyone can have their vote counted and vote safely. The way to accomplish this is by ensuring voters have access to vote-by-mail ahead of the 2020 election.
As the House spent time trying to ensure safe and secure elections for all Americans, President Donald Trump is working overtime to discredit vote-by-mail as a legitimate voting option. In May, the House of Representatives passed phase four of a COVID-19 relief bill and part of that bill is $3.6 billion to protect federal elections. The bill is now headed to the Senate and they can’t drag their feet on fixing this issue. With the clock running down before November 3, the time to pass the coronavirus relief bill to protect our elections is now.
In order to ensure this bill passes and our elections have the proper funding, the onus falls squarely on the shoulders of Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. Hailing from the great state of Florida where sunshine is abundant and vote-by-mail is available to every Floridian, both Rubio and Scott have the opportunity to be leaders in the Senate. By showing their colleagues that with proper advance funding vote-by-mail can be implemented nationwide and is a viable option in November.
For Floridians, vote-by-mail is part of the electoral process and requesting an absentee ballot ahead of election day is hassle-free. It is projected the 2020 election will see an increased dependence on vote-by-mail. In fact, vote-by-mail in the Sunshine State has steadily increased over the past three presidential elections. The 2016 general election saw over 2.7 million (roughly 29%) registered voters cast their ballot by mail, and during the 2018 midterm election vote-by-mail saw an increase to 31% of votes cast by mail. President Trump was among that percentage.
No one knows what the state of our nation will be in regards to the pandemic this November. But the one thing we know is, Americans should not have to choose between their health and exercising their civic duty on election day. The best way to ensure a free and fair election on November 3 is to give voters across the country the option to vote-by-mail this election. In order to do this, Rubio and Scott will need to step up and tout the benefits the Sunshine State has seen in vote-by-mail.