Thousands of voters may be unaware that their registration to vote by mail has expired

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Want to do this? Make sure your vote-by-mail registration is up to date.

According to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office, the number of registered voters in Orange County who have registered for vote-by-mail has dropped by more than half since the 2022 election cycle, presumably as a result of new election law changes.

In 2021, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature approved a sweeping (and controversial) elections law, SB 90, that in part requires registered voters in Florida to re-register for mail-in ballots after every general federal election cycle.

As a result, all vote-by-mail requests in Florida expired on Dec. 22, 2022 — so if you haven’t re-registered for vote-by-mail since then, and would like to, now is the time to do so. You'll also probably want to mark your calendar, or write a reminder to do so in the future, if you wish to vote by mail in other upcoming elections, too.

As of July 3, there are 81,915 voters in Orange County who are registered to vote by mail, compared to the 195,935 voters who were registered for mail-in ballots for the 2022 election cycle. If you do the math, that’s fewer than half who are registered today compared to two years ago.

All vote-by-mail requests in Florida expired on Dec. 22, 2022. if you haven’t re-registered for vote-by-mail since then, now is the time.

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In order to vote by mail in the upcoming Aug. 20, 2024, Primary Election, the deadline to register for a mail ballot is Aug. 8, according to the Supervisor of Elections Office.

The deadline to register to vote (in general) in the August Primary is July 22, 2024.

The significant drop in mail ballot requests was acknowledged in a recent press release by acting Supervisor of Elections Glen Gilzean, a former administrator for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District who was appointed to the role of elections chief by Gov. DeSantis in March.

“This year we have seen a sharp drop in the number of people requesting vote-by-mail ballots and while more people may be opting to vote in person, we want to make sure any voter who wants to vote by mail knows the approaching deadlines for the primary,” Gilzean said in a statement.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Gilzean had previously shared the wrong cut-off date for vote-by-mail registration in a Facebook post in late June, although the post has since been edited. Gilzean, a Republican, recently announced that he is not running for a full term as Supervisor of Elections this November, thus leaving five candidates in the running for the open seat.

How to check your Vote by Mail status or register to vote

Orange County voters can register to vote for mail ballots online by visiting https://www.ocfelections.com/vote-by-mail

If you are a resident of Orange County who is eligible to vote, but has not yet done so, you have three options:

1. You can fill out a voter registration application online.
   2. You can register to vote by printing and mailing in an application (Spanish version here)
   3. You can register to vote in person at a public library, driver’s license office, WIC and DCF offices, Center for Independent Living, or at the Supervisor of Elections Office.
   
   

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