A sign is seen outside a polling place at the Boca Raton Library during the Florida primary election. | AP Photo/Julio Cortez Florida election officials sound the alarm ahead of November

TALLAHASSEE — Election supervisors in Florida warned Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday that he needs to change the law to give them more flexibility to avoid a presidential election meltdown in the nation’s biggest swing state.

The county officials — who issued the red alert on the same day Wisconsin held a disastrous primary amid widespread fears and irregularities due to the coronavirus — said the changes are needed to accommodate more absentee ballot voters, who could be scared away from the polls if the coronavirus outbreak persists into the August primary or the November general election.


“Florida is not in a position, at this time, to conduct an all-mail ballot election this year,” Tammy Jones, supervisor for Levy County and the president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, wrote DeSantis in a letter sent Tuesday on behalf of the 67 officials who run elections in the state.

Florida, always a battleground for presidential elections, could make or break President Donald Trump's effort to win a second term in November.

In the March 17 presidential primary, Jones said, supervisors had trouble keeping poll workers, were forced to move polling locations and had difficulty keeping a supply of hand sanitizer available. More than 3 million voters cast ballots.

Two poll workers in Broward County, an area prone to elections debacles, contracted the coronavirus.

Supervisors asked DeSantis to allow them to start early voting 22 days before the August primary and the November general election and keep early voting sites open through Election Day.

Early voting sites currently must be closed the day before the election. Supervisors also want to be able to consolidate polling places.

Florida has nearly 14 million registered voters. In the past two general elections, about a third of those who voted sent their ballot by mail.

The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Already under fire for what some pandemic experts have said was a slow response to the coronavirus, DeSantis hasn’t indicated whether he believes the Florida Legislature should be called into special session to handle the state’s elections system.

Florida has been ground zero for election mishaps and disasters for decades, most famously in the 2000 presidential election, which was marred by widespread voting irregularities and much-maligned punch-card ballots that helped deliver the state — and therefore the White House — to George W. Bush. Bush won Florida by 537 official votes.

Since then, the state has had a history of razor-thin elections margins. Three statewide races in 2018 went to recounts, and an equipment malfunction in a 2006 congressional race led the state to ban touchscreen voting machines.

Russians agents in 2016 are suspected of hacking the voter registration systems of at least two Florida counties, the identities of which have not been disclosed by state and federal officials, who insist the hacking did not affect the vote tallies in the presidential election.

Leon County elections supervisor Mark Earley stressed that supervisors need flexibility in “conducting secure and accessible elections at a very uncertain moment in our history.”

“These requests are temporary in nature, but we believe the flexibility they would give us is essential if we hope to successfully conduct elections for the people of Florida in the coming months,” Earley told POLITICO.

The Tuesday letter from supervisors was sent as six small cities in Polk County held municipal elections. Pasco County is scheduled to hold municipal elections next week, but Supervisor Brian Corley asked DeSantis to postpone them until the Aug. 18 statewide primary. DeSantis told reporters on Tuesday that he would grant the request.

“I don’t think there’s any election that couldn’t be done in August,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think we’d lose much.”

DeSantis had insisted with going ahead with the March presidential primary, pointing out that Americans voted during the Civil War.

Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards said she understood that both the governor and the Legislature will have their own opinions but supervisors need to “know the road map ASAP” for the upcoming elections. She stressed that they need to have the same policies in place for both the August and November votes.

“It will be confusing to try to communicate changes to voters and we need consistency for our election administration planning and logistics,” Edwards said.

The Florida Democratic Party has already been pushing to beef up its vote-by-mail efforts ahead of this year’s presidential election. The party recently texted 1 million registered voters and asked them to request a mail-in ballot. They plan to send out 200,000 mailers in the next two weeks urging voters to vote by mail.

Party Executive Director Juan Peñalosa said vote-by-mail was always part of the 2020 strategy but the party has “doubled down” due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Several groups, meanwhile, have filed a federal lawsuit calling for Florida to take steps to address the outbreak. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle turned down a request to take action while the primary was underway. A hearing has been scheduled for this summer.

Marc Caputo contributed to this report.