DeSantis, a Republican, revealed live on "Fox & Friends" that the new law would continue to keep things like mail voting accessible while also protecting election integrity.
"I have what we think is the strongest election integrity measure in the country," DeSantis noted. "We're making sure we're enforcing voter ID… We're also banning ballot harvesting. We're not gonna let political operatives go and get satchels of votes to dump them in some drop box."
He added: "We're also prohibiting mass mailing of balloting. We've had absentee voting in Florida for a long time. You request the ballot. You get it. And you mail it in. But to just indiscriminately send them out is not a recipe for success."
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Democrats, meanwhile, have slammed the Florida bill and similar efforts in other states as "voter suppression." Others have said the legislatures that are moving ahead with new bills targeted at election security are doing so based on the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election saw widespread fraud. DeSantis, for his part, has touted the security of the 2020 election in his state but said more needs to be done for the future.
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The law was immediately challenged in court by Democrat lawyer Marc Elias.
"REAKING: Minutes after Governor DeSantis signs new voter suppression law, @LWVFlorida, @BlackVotesMtr, @ActiveRetirees file federal court lawsuit," Elias tweeted. "Proud to be part of the legal team supporting these great organizations protecting the right to vote!"
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"SB 90 does not impede all of Florida’s voters equally," the lawsuit alleges. "It is crafted to and will operate to make it more difficult for certain types of voters to participate in the state’s elections, including those voters who generally wish to vote with a vote-by-mail ballot and voters who have historically had to overcome substantial hurdles to reach the ballot box, such as Florida's senior voters, youngest voters, and minority voters."
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The bill takes an omnibus approach, addressing a variety of issues at once, similar to the approach of an election law that Georgia enacted earlier this year.
Also among its provisions is a "prohibition on the use of private funds for election-related expenses," which is a response to the fact Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others provided funding to some states and cities last year to help run the election.
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The bill also allows drop boxes but with some restrictions.
"Drop boxes must be geographically located so as to provide all voters in the county with an equal opportunity to cast a ballot," the bill says, and "must be monitored in person."
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DeSantis said he is "not a fan" of drop boxes but that the legislature "wanted to keep them." So the new law, DeSantis said, "The drop boxes will be available only when they're monitored and during regular voting hours."
"You can't just leave these boxes out where there's not supervision all hours of the night." the governor concluded.
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