JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – For decades, Florida has been in the national spotlight on Election Night when it comes to ballot counts.
Tuesday night was no different, except this time, Florida did everything right, perhaps learning on the lessons from the 2000 election. During a news conference Wednesday in Tallahasse, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis praised the state’s election officials' handling of the ballot count.
“I think it’s a testament to the state’s performance that as we see chaos unfolding in these other battleground states where votes may not be counted for days”, DeSantis said. “Why can’t more states be more like Florida?”
DeSantis also said, “Perhaps 2020 was the year that we finally vanquished the ghost of Bush versus Gore."
Florida is one of the many states that processed mail-in ballots before election day.
That’s not the case in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which did not start processing ballots until Election Day.
Jerry Holland once served as the supervisor of elections in Duval County.
“No doubt we have to figure out how to process these ballots quicker," he said.
Holland said it’s up to each state as to when to process ballots.
When asked how hard it is to change the process, Holland responded:
“It really comes in the state’s -- the pressure and desire for them to change. I know in the last two gubernatorial they had a desire before they go to bed on Election Night to know the results, so they motivated the legislature to make these changes and to make sure the individual counties rose to the occasion.”
When asked if there was any reason not to allow voting to be counted early, Holland responded:
“During the process, if you’re counting the ballots before the polls close, no one knows the outcome. There’s no suspicion. But afterwards, now it’s like, oh, you know how close it is, you’re motivated to do something different and that only leads to conspiracy and suspicion on the voters. There’s a desire and they need to improve this process.”