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”We have guided mIssiles and misguided men”…..Martin Luther King. jr.
Over the past 2 years Governor De Santis has made an effort to make it harder to vote in Florida. In June Governor De Santis signed a restrictive voting law requiring voters to request vote-by-mail ballots more frequently, limiting where & when drop boxes can be opened & expanding powers to partisan poll watchers.
One example of the Governors new law restricts dropbox accessibility to 12 hours per day. Keep in mind this restriction is not needed which is why it’s never existed prior to this law. Restricting this accessibility directly affects people of color who have a difficult time taking off from shift jobs to vote. In past elections drop boxes without restriction have worked well with very little concern about any type of tampering. This is just another way to keep Floridians from voting.
Governor De Santis has also proposed the creation of an Office of Election Crimes & Security, answerable to him. Clearly another tool of intimidation geared towards stopping the almost non existent voter fraud in Florida. He’s not only pulling Florida more to the right he’s pulling it towards a brand of authoritarian conservatism. This authoritarian conservatism has been the hallmark of Governor De Santis’s tenure.
In his State of the State address earlier in the month he called Florida “the freest state in the US … the rock of freedom”. This is freedom unless your idea of freedom involves encouraging people to get vaccinated, protecting your families, employees & customers from the pandemic, teaching history honestly, voting & protesting or anything else the Republican legislature doesn’t want you to do in Florida.
Let’s remember that the Republicans in Congress in Florida voted against:
Capping Insulin Prices
Universal Pre-K
Affordable Child Care
Medicare Hearing Coverage
Climate Investments
Affordable Housing
Closing the Medicaid Gap
This authoritarian conservatism looks & feels a lot like Fascism to me! And Governor De Santis that’s not what freedom looks like to millions of Florida voters. So, again I urge you to get involved or be ready for Florida becoming the least free state in the US!
Patti Kasanow: Author.
Note: The views of Ms. Kasanow are not those of every team member of M!H nor MargsPod LLC. We pride ourselves in being diverse in every sense.
Margie Burns-Kohn. (Founder of M!H/MargsPod LLC.)