by Paul Bois, Breitbart:
Florida closed out the midterm Tuesday night with swift vote results while other states like Arizona, Alaska, California, etc., slowed to a snail’s pace, prompting comparisons to the 2020 election and questions regarding efficiency.
Americans can recall the Bush v. Gore 2000 election when Florida had little to boast about election efficiency as the country waited for weeks between recounts and litigation for a winner to be declared, but 20 years later, that nightmare has been reduced to a distant memory in the Sunshine State. What changed since then? As WPTV political analyst Brian Crowley put it after Trump handily won Florida in 2020, it all comes down to the state’s investment in the right equipment and its counting of mail-in ballots 22 days before the election.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
“When you look at what’s going on in some of the other states right now, where there is uncertainty, at least Floridians can put their heads on their pillow and know Florida got it right this time,” Crowley noted at the time.
Ben Kuehne, an election attorney who remembered the 2000 Florida vote debacle, concurred. “Florida invested money in technology that works and works fast,” he said. “Our Constitution says that elections are done at the state level. That is one of the remarkable aspects of our Constitution, so state law matters.”
Tamika Cody of WTSP provided a comprehensive history of how Florida reformed its vote-counting practices to become an example that the rest of the country has not yet caught up to in many respects:
The 2000 election drew attention to Florida’s problematic punch-card ballots, which voters found confusing and difficult to use. Many people voted for too many or too few candidates. Often, pieces of paper were left hanging on ballots and became dubbed “hanging chads.” On others, voters managed to indent but not punch their ballots – leading to a “dimpled chad.” Both scenarios left canvassers trying to determine voters’ intents.
The next year, Florida revised its Voting Systems Standards through the Florida Elections Reform Act of 2001. Three years later, in May 2004, Florida modified its system again to include accessibility requirements for people with disabilities.
In 2020, states such as Pennsylvania waited all the way until Election to open mail-in ballots, which slowed the vote count for several days on end as former President Trump’s lead slowly dwindled until Joe Biden won the state. Up to 4.85 million Florida voters cast their ballots by mail on Election Day 2020 and part of the reason why the country knew the outcome that very Tuesday night stems from the fact that the state had already developed a robust system to process mail-in ballots quickly and efficiently.
