Open Memo to Florida Election Officials

The new law for mail in ballot requests was not followed and Floridians need answers as to why.

Recap & Invitation to This week’s Senate Meeting

In my previous post “Half a Million Mail Votes with No ID in Florida's 2024 General Election” we laid out the data that demonstrates that Florida Elections Statute 101.62, that required all mail in ballot requestors be verified with either a Florida State ID (Florida Driver’s License) or the last 4 digits of the voter’s Social Security Number, was ignored for the November 2024 elections. Although not included in that post, we also can now see the same issue occurred during the August 2024 Primary Election as well.

I would hope our elected officials would throughly investigate the matter and bring corrective actions where necessary. If the law was not followed, we would like to know why and who is ultimately responsible. The grassroots in Florida worked tirelessly with their Legislators for years to bring about this change to the law. To see that law now being ignored, does not help rebuild trust in our elections.

The Florida Senate’s Committee on Ethics & Elections is being held this Tuesday, February 4, 2025 and I trust that the honorable members Senator Gaetz, Chair; Senator Bernard, Vice Chair; Senators Avila, Bradley, Collins, Garcia, Grall, Polsky, and Rouson would have some questions for Supervisors of Elections as well as the Secretary of State, Cord Byrd and Divisions of Elections Director, Maria Matthews.

If you are a Floridian, I urge you to attend this meeting at the Florida Senate Building in Tallahassee to show Senators and Elections Officials, you are deeply concerned about the integrity of Florida Elections.

Questions For FL Division of Elections

I can imagine running elections in a large state like Florida is complicated, but even in the most complex of organizations, everything comes down to documented process and procedures.

So I’m assuming when laws change, the Divisions of Elections would have something like this over-simplistic 3 step approach:

1. Communicate - First thing is to alert officials of the change and start the dialog with stakeholders which may also include vendors about the changes.

2. Educate - Second thing would be to educated the stakeholders and this may happen at multiple points over time. For example, there may be changes to the software our election run on that need to be demonstrated to both county officials as well as their staff.

3. Compliance - The last step is process and procedure that will help the state ensure the local counties and vendors are in compliance with the law.

Based on the above, here are some questions Floridians need answers to:

1. WHEN was the first formal notification of the changes to the law communicated to county Supervisors of Election by the Division of Election? (see reference to FL CS/SB 7050 page 61 below. The law was passed on May 25, 2023 and went into effect July 1, 2023.)

2. What was the Division of Election’s training plan to educate County Supervisors of Election to the changes on Vote By Mail Request requirements?

3. When was the Division of Election training on the changes to the system completed? This is an important question, because we need to know if county Supervisor of Elections had the time to roll out internal training and compliance procedures.

4. What were the Division of Election compliance procedures to make sure the law was being followed by county Supervisor of Elections? Was it the Vote By Mail Request Reports that were uploaded to the state that clearly showed 580,116 Request showed “N” for both the StateID & Last 4 of SSN?

5. Who was ultimately responsible for this law to be followed at both the local and state levels?

For reference here is the specific page of FL CS/SB 7050 that was changed and went into effect July 1st, 2023.

FL-SB7050, pg 61 https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/7050/BillText/er/PDF

Recap of No ID Issues in Vote By Mail

• 580,116 Request showed “N” for both the StateID & Last 4 of SSN

• Out of that total, 476,239 (82%) showed counted as Voted.

• Just 2 Counties made up nearly 80% of that Total Voted number:

  • Miami-Dade = 200,516 Voted

  • Pinellas = 169,714 Voted

• In both counties, the requests with no ID recorded (No DL & SSN4 column below) made up about 70% of the total mail in ballot requests for EACH of their county’s election.

• Florida Supervisors of Elections are now claiming requests done BEFORE the change in the law that went into effect July 1st, 2023 were “grandfathered.” Upon review, we only show 49,265 Requests statewide with a Request Date earlier than July 1, 2023. That still leaves 525,902 Mail Ballots Requested AFTER July 1, 2023.

Questions For County Supervisors of Elections

The missing ID verification for mail ballot requests could be found in all counties in Florida to varying degree. However, just two counties, Miami-Dade and Pinellas made up nearly 80% of the volume of these requests state wide. What makes these 2 counties even stranger is the fact that nearly all of those requests show up in just 2 days in SEPTEMBER 2024:

• Mon Sept 9th = 212,872 Total Requests vs Pinellas = 196,037 (92% of Total)

• Fri, Sept 13th = 261,176 Total Requests vs Miami = 247,588 (94% of Total)

Based on the above, here are some questions Floridians need answers to:

1. Were these 2 counties using a different system to record requests for mail in ballots? We were told when this same pattern appeared in the August 2024 Primary, that it was “normal” for these counties to upload on a single day.

2. If that is the case, how does the state audit the county to ensure these counties are following the law? ALL COUNTIES have requests coming in throughout the year. Not in single day dumps. If this is the case, how does the county and state know to “grandfather” these requests by their request date?

3. The large volume of requests seems to be timed very close to time where printers were starting to print and mail ballots. What are the internal checks done prior to this large dump to ensure the requests were properly vetted and in compliance with the law?

4. Since election employees can record requests for mail in ballots to the systems from just phone calls to your offices, what are your internal audit and security procedures that would prevent a rogue employee stealing voters identities and making requests without their knowledge?

5. Are all the staff taking requests by phone for mail in ballots, county employees that are properly vetted with background checks to not have criminal records?

6. Are temporary staffing agencies every used to fill staffing positions that would give them access to the mail in ballot requests? If so, do you see the same background information on them?

7. Do you have internal reports that can show the number of requests that are entered per staff member per day or over the election period? If so, can the public see those records per request to the county?

In Conclusion

Transparency Builds Trust. Florida has some of the best Sunshine Laws in the nation and we appreciate having officials so willing to cooperate with elections integrity advocates all over the state.

No system is 100% perfect and we are aware corrections are always needed over time. That said, we also have laws for a reason. If laws were broken, and from the reports we have seen so far, that appears to be the case, we would like to know how it happened and ultimately who is responsible for the infraction. Ultimately we want to make sure all forms of voting are secure to protect Floridian’s voice.

Sincerely,

Kris Jurski
The People’s Audit