It doesn't matter how many supervisors of elections complain that their small Florida counties don't need 14 days of early voting and can't pay for them, 14 days should be the law say Senate Democrats.
"What's the price of democracy?" asks Senate Minority Leader Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale.
Senate Dems met with the capital press Monday to lobby for seven steps they want to see in the final elections bill. Never mind that the Republican-controlled Legislature is moving to change the states election law to prevent the long lines of last November, Democrats say the GOP proposal doesn't go far enough.
The Republican version would allow counties to choose between eight and 14 days of early voting.
Democrats also want supervisors of elections to be able to choose more early voting sites and if a polling place has a wait of more than one hour, then the supervisor should have to open another location or bring in more voting booths.
Said Sen. Darren Soto, We are proposing one early voting site per 47,000 registered voters. The number of early voting locations cannot be less than the number used during the 2012 election. In addition, wait times of longer than one hour in any early voting location would mandate the opening of an additional location or the addition of voting booths and machines to early voting sites.
Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, is pushing for 15 days of early voting, including the Sunday before the Election Day "so that those of us who live in African-American communities and in Latino communities and in the community in general will be able to have a 'Souls to the Polls.'
Democrats say they also want to restore the ability for voters to change their registration at the polls on Election Day and vote with a regular ballot. Floridas election law currently requires those voters to cast a provisional ballot.
Dave Heller is a freelance Tallahassee reporter/videographer. Nancy Smith, nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com, (850) 727-0859, contributed to this story.
