A bipartisan coalition of local leaders and former legislators will be crossing the Interstate 4 corridor ahead of the November General Election in hopes of restoring voter confidence and building community resiliency to resist political conflict.
The Florida Resiliency and Fair Elections Network will start off its Voter Confidence Tour in Pinellas County on Tuesday. The network will be visiting six county Supervisors of Elections Offices across the I-4 corridor, bringing community members together to view their election process firsthand to increase confidence in Florida's election system.
Former Reps. Kurt Kelly, an Ocala Republican, and Jennifer Webb, a Gulfport Democrat, coordinated the tour with support from The Carter Center. The cross-partisan network will also host a wide range of civic, religious and community leaders to serve as public anti-violence, pro-democracy advocates, engaging Floridians from across the political spectrum to counter misinformation surrounding the Midterm Election.
"After touring the supervisor of election's offices, we hope to share with you the perspective from a trusted community individual who viewed firsthand that elections are free, fair, safe and secure in Florida," the network wrote in a news release.
Early voting began Monday for over half of Florida's counties, and with little more than two weeks before the Nov. 8 General Election, the initial data show voters are likely to vote by mail at higher levels than in 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but not as much as during the peak of the pandemic in 2020.
This year, however, conspiracy theories over election fraud and ballot manipulation are a rising trend. Some in the GOP are urging fellow Republicans to hold onto their ballots until Election Day, citing unfounded conspiracies that fraudsters will manipulate voting systems to rig results for Democrats once they have seen how many Republican votes have been returned early.
There has been no evidence of any such widespread fraud.
The Florida Resiliency and Fair Elections Network aims to prevent these trends from becoming the new normal in Florida.
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