When a Category 5 hurricane tears through a Florida community, voters should not have to wait for the governor to issue an executive order just to cast a ballot. Yet that’s exactly what happens in Florida. State law does not allow local election officials to act quickly in response to an emergency, even though they are closest to the communities they serve.
Hurricane season runs from June through the end of November, overlapping with Florida’s primary and general elections.
Storm damage can linger for months. Homes are destroyed or made unlivable. People uproot and relocate their lives. But natural disasters must never disenfranchise people who are eligible to vote.
A powerful example came in 2018, when Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm, devastated the Florida Panhandle. The Bay County Supervisor of Elections office saw its staff, facilities and equipment severely impacted. Many polling places were inaccessible. Thousands of voters and workers were displaced.
It took eight days for then-Gov. Rick Scott to authorize Bay County to consolidate its 44 polling places into a handful of countywide “mega-voting” sites. Even those were difficult to reach due to road closures, fuel shortages and power outages.
This delay was not just logistical — it was a failure of policy. Under current law, supervisors of elections cannot take emergency action on their own. During a major disaster, the governor’s focus is rightly on public safety and infrastructure. But voting access is the top priority of local election officials. The Legislature must empower local supervisors to act when it matters most to adapt election infrastructure to ensure voter access.
That’s why the Southern Poverty Law Center worked with Common Cause Florida and All Voting is Local Florida to support legislation (SB 1486/HB 1317) filed by state Sen. Tina Polsky and state Rep. Lindsay Cross, who are both Democrats, in 2025. While those bills didn’t advance, key provisions were added to HB 1535, filed by state Rep. Fiona McFarland, who is a Republican. Unfortunately, that bill also failed to cross the finish line with the election provisions intact.
However, Florida is not alone in looking at this problem. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Florida Advisory Committee is also reviewing the issue. The SPLC submitted recommendations in April and will continue advocating for reform when legislative committees reconvene this summer. Read our letter here.
Florida’s hurricanes are not going to slow down. Our election laws must catch up. Voters should never be left behind just because a disaster strikes.
Aurelie Colon-Larrauri is a policy associate in Florida for the SPLC.
Image at top: In a photo from Nov. 6, 2018, displaced voters walk through debris to vote in a new polling location at Shell Point Beach in Wakulla County, Florida, after their regular polling place was damaged by Hurricane Michael. (Credit: Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)