A mailer sent out to registered voters throughout Florida from an Orlando-based political action group is causing concern among voters across the state. The mailers have some voters thinking their absentee ballots have been invalidated.
The Lee County Supervisor of Elections office has been receiving a high volume of calls from absentee voters concerned their votes won’t count in Tuesday’s election. Other supervisor of elections offices in the state are also receiving such calls. The problem stems from a mailer sent to voters throughout Florida from the political action group Citizens for a Better Florida, Inc. In recent weeks the organization has spent about $500,000 in mailers for Republican Governor Rick Scott. The mailer that’s caused the controversy points out that voting records are open to the public. It also threatens to ‘out’ those who don’t vote to their neighbors.
“It’s a scare tactic or a shame tactic. It’s not something that we approve of,” said Lee County Elections office spokeswoman Vicki Collins.
“99.8% of our received ballots have been accepted. It’s a huge amount of our ballots have been accepted. So we want people to realize that they don’t have to be afraid to vote their ballot and mail their ballot back.”
For those who haven’t voted early Collins reminds residents that polls are open Nov. 4th from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. She advises anyone with questions about voting or precinct locations not to wait until Election Day to get in touch with their local elections office.
