TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The biggest news out of the Florida Capitol Tuesday was the House calling it quits three days early, though they got some work done beforehand. The chamber passed an online voter registration bill without the support Gov. Rick Scott's top elections official.
Scott hasn't indicated whether or not he'd sign the bill, but if that happens, lawmakers could override it. The bill is also an attempt to help military members overseas sign up to vote.
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Online voter registration could be coming to the state in 2017. The proposal is designed to make it easier for Floridians to cast their ballot. A funding issue had temporarily held up the bill in the Florida House, and Rep. Dwight Dudley said a cybersecurity amendment Tuesday was an attempt to kill it.
"The measures in this bill, this is not a beneficial thing for voters in the state of Florida," Dudley said.
"We ought to be talking about how to publish the data, open-source it and get this right," Rep. Jamie Grant said. "So the extent that someone would say that an amendment to try and kill this bill to make it better is an attempt to kill it is just a patent lie."
The secretary of state had strongly opposed the bill in all of its committee stops. That led some to believe Scott could ultimately veto it.
The governor's top elections official said he was worried that his staff would be bogged down implementing the new system.
Senate sponsor Jeff Clemens said the bill's drafters tried to address every concern.
"You're always worried about a veto, that's the governor's prerogative, but I think we've answered all the concerns that the governor has had," Clemens said. "Other state's have done this in a lot less time. We're giving them two and a half years to put a system together."
With the House done for the rest of the session, the Senate will need to pass the bill as is or it will die before the governor has a chance to do anything.