Every State, Every Vote: Emails, Texts Show DeSantis Voter Suppression Bill Crafted by GOP to Help Republicans Win Elections

New reporting from Politico exposes emails and text messages that show how the new voter suppression bill in Florida championed by Ron DeSantis was specifically designed for the purely political intentions of shutting out Democratic voters from the ballot box and helping Republicans win more elections.

The new law was drafted by Florida Republicans in the state legislature, who worked side by side with Florida Republican Party’s top lawyer to create provisions to crack down on mail-in ballots. Politico noted that the bill’s “crackdown on mail-in ballot requests was seen as a way for the GOP to erase the edge that Democrats had in mail-in voting.”

In a text message, Florida Republican Party Chair and state Senator Joe Gruters defended a Senate proposal to cancel all existing mail-in ballot requests saying it would be “devastating” to Republicans to keep them.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the repressive voting bill live on Fox & Friends. Along with restricting the vote-by-mail process, the bill limits where drop boxes can be placed, restricts who can drop off a voter’s ballot, and mandates drop boxes be staffed while open. These restrictions are specifically targeted to limit Democratic voters and will have a disproportionate impact on Black and Brown voters.

“Ron DeSantis knows he can’t defend his harmful and out-of-touch agenda, so he’s attacking our democracy by intentionally undermining Floridians’ right to vote,” said DGA Deputy Communications Director Sam Newton. “While in public DeSantis uses the bogus excuse of protecting ‘election integrity’ to boost his own politics, behind closed doors Florida Republicans willingly admit the true intent of this bill is to fix elections for themselves. Floridians won’t forget how Ron DeSantis lied to them to rip away their freedom to vote.”