In Florida, democracy ends with autocracy
Gov. Ron DeSantis is playing dangerous game with anti-democratic measures.
Let’s start with Florida’s 2021 election law — making it harder to vote by mail, harder to find an accessible drop box and harder to assist others in submitting a legitimate mail-in ballot. Now, the governor wants a new, special police force dedicated to investigating election crimes. Because there’s absolutely no evidence to support this hare-brained scheme, the idea is little more than a crass political calculation to intimidate certain voters while pandering to radicals who falsely equate voter suppression with election integrity.
It's obvious, preserving democratic freedoms is not a priority of the DeSantis regime. Why else would they enact — in direct response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests — an “anti-riot” law that strikes at the heart of the First Amendment right to “peaceably assemble”? Not only does the law uniformly increase penalties (turning previous misdemeanors into felonies), it makes blocking traffic a third-degree felony and allows more indiscriminate dragnets of non-violent protesters (owing, largely, to its vague and overly broad language).
Ballot initiatives remain one of the few avenues available for citizens to petition the government (another right enshrined in the First Amendment). Yet, Florida’s recent history is marred by numerous efforts to severely restrict that right: by raising the voter percentage for passage (from a simple majority to 60%); by steadily raising the number and nature of signatures needed to get an issue on the ballot; and, generally, by making the collection of signatures more complicated and costly (including imposing a funding cap).
https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-democracy-ends-autocracy-120017506.html
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