Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected climate-conscious governing and added to the list of counties eligible for voting accommodations during a news conference in Sarasota on Oct. 17, 2024. Credit: Screenshot via the governor’s X livestream

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that he has signed an executive order allowing supervisors of elections to make “modest but reasonable accommodations” to ensure voting access following Hurricane Milton.

The executive order adds Milton-affected counties on top of Helene-affected counties with some overlap. The executive order addresses Collier, Glades, Highlands, Indian River, Manatee, Orange, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Sarasota, and St. Lucie counties.

The order enables “supervisors of elections to make reasonable — modest but reasonable — accommodations if they have had damage to any of their voting sites because of the storm and to be able to ensure that folks have an ability and a place to be able cast their ballot,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Sarasota.

A similar executive order following Hurricane Helene included Charlotte, Dixie, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lee, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Sarasota, and Taylor counties.

“I think that there’s obviously going to be a need in some of those counties,” DeSantis said. “You know, some of the others may be in good shape, depending on how they fared for the storm.”

In Pinellas and Taylor counties, early voting will end on the day of the election instead of the third day before the election.

The executive order allows suspension of facility eligibility restrictions and flexibility for ballot intake stations, or drop boxes. Mail-in ballots may be sent to an address other than the voter’s home address to accommodate those who have been forced to relocate. The governor’s order permits consolidation or relocation of precincts to contiguous precincts.

Earlier this week, supervisors of elections called for the accommodations.

“A significant number of residents have been displaced from their homes, staying in temporary shelters or with relatives in other areas,” the supervisors wrote to DeSantis. “These voters may lack access to traditional voting methods or information about alternative options.”

DeSantis on climate change

Since the second major storm in two weeks brought high winds, flooding, tornadoes, and widespread damage to much of the Florida peninsula last week, DeSantis has been deflecting questions from the press about whether climate change is at work.

A reporter asked again on Thursday: “When will we hear the words climate change from you?”

DeSantis dismissed people worried about climate change as following a “religion.”

“The chance of me virtue signaling for people in the media is zero, so do not count on that,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to your religion, and it’s just a tired refrain and song and dance. I get you have an agenda. I understand that.”

Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a bill erasing references to “climate change” from state law.

He added Thursday that he believes that governing in a climate-conscious way would cause the country to collapse.

“I think you should be more honest about what that would mean for people, taxing them to smithereens, stopping oil and gas, making people pay dramatically more for energy. We would collapse as a country,” DeSantis said.

“So, this whole idea of climate ideology driving policy — it just factually can’t work. And so, in Florida, our energy is going to be affordable and reliable. That’s what you’re going to do. That’s the only way you can adequately respond to things like we just saw with the storms, to get people hooked back up.”

DeSantis was in Sarasota to give $100,000 from the Florida Disaster Fund to each of the direct school support organizations in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties to assist with recovery from the hurricane. Earlier Thursday, the governor announced a $1 million grant from the fund to nonprofits helping with hurricane recovery.

The state is operating points of distribution to hand out food, water, tarps, and other resources. A map of those sites can be found on the Division of Emergency Management website.

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