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Recommendations for Increased Accessibility& Efficiency in Florida Elections Florida Department of State Ballot Length • Set a word limit for proposed legislative amendments. • Repeal statutes allowing the full text(stricken or underlined) of a constitutional amendment or revision to be placed on a ballot. • Allow mail ballot elections for candidates in certain elections. Furthermore, Secretary Detzner suggests county governments strongly consider making the necessary voting equipment upgrades to meet current voter needs. He also suggests supervisors of elections re-evaluate their 2012 General Election precincts, upload votes earlier in elections to test county systems, establish best practices and ensure contracts with their vendors have safeguards to ensure the warranty, maintenance and upgrading of voting equipment. 2012 General Election Overview and Findings A. Overview During the 2012 General Election, more Floridians voted than in any previous election in Florida history, with more than 8.5 million Floridians casting a ballot. Among these voters, more than half of them voted prior to Election Day. More than 2.4 million Floridians cast a ballot during IWAW the early voting period and nearly 2.4 million Floridians voted an absentee ballot—also a Florida election record. Florida is one of only three southeastern states, and one of only 26 states nationwide, that offers both early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. However, despite the variety of voting methods in Florida, many voters found themselves waiting in line for hours to cast a ballot both during the early voting period and on Election Day. These lines can be attributed, in part, to county supervisors of elections underestimating the turnout of voters in certain precincts. But most, if not all, counties experienced longer wait times than in previous elections due to factors including the record number of voters, a shortened early voting schedule, inadequate voting locations, limited voting equipment and a long ballot. B. Early Voting Changes to the Florida Election Code in 2011 reduced the number of early voting days from 14 to 8, but maintained the same maximum number of hours (96) during the early voting period. These hours included up to 12 hours a day of early voting to allow voters more flexibility to cast a ballot before or after work. However, whether the new early voting hours encouraged more voters to vote early or because fewer early voting days funneled more voters into polling places at the same time, or a combination of both circumstances, several early voting sites in some counties could not manage the volume of voters without enduring excessive and unreasonable waiting times to vote. q3 F- 4