Nearly four million people in Florida have already voted by mail, but some two million more have requested ballots and not yet returned them. Democratic leaders could go to the courts on such contested issues—but in Florida more than two decades of solid Republican control has made that route deeply uncertain. “Dexter Filkins: "The fall of Ramadi is not just a bleak symbolic defeat for the Iraqi government and its allies" http://t.co/54o4krZ4ly” Saved searches. In 2019, the Republican-dominated legislature eviscerated an amendment to the state constitution that granted voting rights to most nonviolent felons who had completed their sentences. To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election. Florida remains deeply polarized, and statewide races have continued to be decided by razor-thin margins. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Disinformation poses a danger, too. In the past decade, G.O.P.

This byline is mine, but I want my name removed. “He doesn’t want there to be any doubt,” Mitchell Berger, a prominent Democratic lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, told me. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Dexter Filkins is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of “The Forever War,” which won a National Book Critics Circle Award. If Trump has already lost Florida, though, those complaints are likely to carry much less weight, even with his supporters. “Unless there is a good reason to reject a ballot, we don’t reject a ballot,” Mark Earley, the supervisor of elections in Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, told me. According to Earley, more than fifty thousand early ballots have been checked in his county, and only a hundred have issues awaiting resolution. In Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, the Republican-dominated canvassing board has been barring people from filming while it considers problematic ballots. Filkins worked at the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times, where he was the paper’s New Delhi bureau chief, before joining the New York Times, in 2000, reporting from New York, South Asia, and Iraq, where he was based from 2003 to 2006. Voter-registration systems in the state—as in every state—are especially vulnerable to attack. How Republicans have been suppressing Democratic votes to turn Florida from a swing state into a G.O.P. Trump has to win in Florida, and, if he’s within reach, the threat of chaos seems highly probable. “It’s just the math,” he said. If the signatures match, the envelope is opened and the ballot counted. In 2018, when Rick Scott ran for a U.S. Senate seat against the incumbent, Bill Nelson, some fifteen thousand ballots were not counted because they arrived after Election Day—a number larger than Scott’s margin of victory. “Someone should have been arrested for that,’’ he said. But there may be at least one way to know whether Joe Biden will be President—if he decisively wins the state of Florida.
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When the ballot is received, the signature on the envelope is compared with the voter’s signature on her registration record. All rights reserved. Lawyers for Trump have been more aggressive than Biden’s lawyers in challenging ballots, but they have been ineffective. To revisit this article, select My⁠ ⁠Account, then View saved stories. Will Florida Decide the Presidential Race or Throw It Into Confusion? Verified account Protected Tweets @ Suggested users Verified account Protected Tweets @ Verified account Protected Tweets @ He told me that he wasn’t planning on being in Florida on Election Day—he’ll be in D.C., he said, hopefully someplace close to the White House. He has written about the murder of a journalist in Pakistan, the uprisings in Yemen, the war in Afghanistan, the crises in Syria and Lebanon, the Prime Minister of Turkey, and a troubled Iraq war veteran who tracked down the surviving members of a family his unit had opened fire on. On October 14th, the office of Laurel Lee, the secretary of state, sent a letter to county election supervisors informing them that every early-voting drop box should be protected by a security guard around the clock. The ballot is thrown out only if the canvassing board decides that it is invalid. Nearly four million people in Florida have already voted by mail, but some two million more have requested ballots and not yet returned them. All fifteen were accepted. Russian hackers penetrated election systems in at least two Florida counties in 2016, and, according to American intelligence, they are working to compromise the process again. (County governments have placed hundreds of boxes around the state; most are emptied and locked at the end of the day’s voting.) In theory, the tabulation of ballots cast in person should proceed quickly. Biden Makes the Election a Moral Referendum, sitting President threatens to delay a sacrosanct American ritual like an election, look at what he has provided the executive class, The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump. In Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, lawyers for the Trump campaign challenged fifteen random signatures, in what they described as an effort to test the system. If the vote count is close this year, fights will likely arise from every kind of ballot anomaly, including mismatched signatures and missing postmarks. Will Florida Decide 2020 or Throw It Into Confusion? “Dexter Filkins on the resurgence of Iraq’s sectarian war: http://t.co/7jC2jS5SfV” The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. By the time Election Day is over, all the votes may not be counted. When I spoke to Earley earlier this month, he told me that the Trump lawyers had contested signatures on ten ballots so far; all ten were examined and counted, he said. Dexter Filkins joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2011. Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys’ chairman, denied that there was an altercation and said that the group of Proud Boys was much smaller. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Can Ron DeSantis Deliver a Victory in Florida to Donald Trump? This byline is for a different person with the same name.

He has received numerous prizes, including two George Polk Awards and three Overseas Press Club Awards.

leaders have learned that lower turnouts usually help their candidates, and they have pushed laws to make it harder for people to vote. “If Biden can win Florida early on Election Night, it’s over.”. But the knockout scenario assumes two things: Biden wins Florida by a convincing margin, and there are no major disputes about the tally. If the signatures seem mismatched, the unopened ballot is set aside and the voter is contacted and given a chance to fix the problem. An adviser from each of the campaigns is also allowed to express an opinion. Ever since the pandemic began, Democratic leaders have feared that a substantial majority of Republican voters would cast ballots in person on Election Day. But the Proud Boys may still add to the uncertainty of Election Day. Postal Service. There is also the possibility of foreign intervention. And while pollsters believe that Biden can plausibly win the Presidency without winning Florida’s twenty-nine electoral votes, they are confident that President Donald Trump cannot. In the caravan, a truck with a large screen was playing pro-Biden videos. But in Florida mail-in ballots are being counted as they arrive—meaning that, unless an unexpectedly large wave of ballots arrives by mail on Election Day, state officials will post the tally of mail-in votes shortly after the polls close, at 7 P.M. At the request of county election supervisors, Governor Ron DeSantis agreed to allow them to begin counting ballots weeks earlier than usual.

(In Florida, Democrats lead Republicans by a huge margin in mail-in votes, and Republicans have a sizable lead in early voting.) The other factor that has strained Florida elections is voter suppression, which has been a key component in the Republican Party’s quest to become the state’s dominant party. Voting by mail has gone smoothly so far. The volume has already set records: more than three million mail-in ballots have been received, in addition to about two million early votes cast in person. That’s because state laws do not allow mail-in and absentee ballots to be counted until Election Day—even as mail-in ballots are surging amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And Florida has experienced balloting problems in nearly every statewide election since 2000, when George W. Bush and Al Gore finished with nearly identical totals, initiating a long and vicious fight. “Usually, by 11 P.M. we are out of here—that’s my hope and prayer.”. Last week, many Democratic voters received intimidating e-mails, which threatened, “You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you.” The messages were made to appear as if they were from the Proud Boys, a group that government agencies have deemed “white supremacist.” In fact, according to American intelligence officials, they were sent by Iranian agents. Under state law, voters must place their completed ballot in a signed envelope and drop it in the mail.


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