Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has recently unveiled a comprehensive election reform package designed to safeguard the sanctity of elections in Florida and help bring back the faith of the voters in the election system.

Even though DeSantis claimed Florida conducted the "smoothest, most successful election of any state in the country," his office is still working on ways to further improve and secure Florida's elections and hopefully set a good example to other states.

"While we should celebrate this feat, we should not rest on our laurels. Today, we are taking action to ensure that Florida remains a leader on key issues regarding our electoral process, such as ballot integrity, public access to election information, transparency of election reporting, and more," DeSantis said.

"By strengthening these election integrity protections, we will ensure that our elections remain secure and transparent and that Florida's electoral process remains a blueprint for other states to follow."

The proposed legislation is a vital step in designing some of the nation's strongest election integrity protections that provide residents of Florida an exemptional and transparent election system.

The proposed legislation would include the following measures, per the Florida Governer's Office:

Ballot Integrity

  • To address the use of ballot drop boxes, and ballot harvesting "so that no person may possess ballots other than their own and their immediate family."
  • Prohibiting the mass mailing of vote-by-mail ballots. Only legitimate voters who request a ballot should receive a ballot. Further, vote-by-mail requests must be made each election year.
  • Signature verification: voter signatures on the vote-by-mail ballots must match the most recent signature on file.

Election Process Transparency

  • Political parties and candidates must be able to observe the signature matching process.

  • Election supervisors must post over-vote ballots to be considered by the canvassing board on their website, before the canvassing board meets

  • Bar counties from receiving grants from private third-party groups and organizations for "get out the vote" initiatives.

Election Reporting Transparency

  • Real-time reporting of voter turnout data at the precinct level will be mandatory.

  • Elections Supervisors must report the number of ballots requested, the number of ballots received, and how many are left to be counted.

A large percentage of Americans lost their faith in the election system and now doubt whether an honest election is possible. This is because a number of states in the U.S. used COVID-19 as an excuse to illegally change their election rules in 2020 while playing "fast and loose" with ballot security, according to a report from The Dan Bongino Show.

That is why DeSantis' step is such an important aspect for leading the way on that issue. It needs to be addressed not just in Florida, but everywhere else, so that the people's faith in the system can be restored. Americans need to see previous suspicious practices outlawed to convince them that their votes are secure.

"We did it right in 2020, we obviously gotta look and make sure we're doing it better," DeSantis said, promising to continue efforts to improve the election system.