Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried spoke to nearly 500 people in a virtual town hall on Wednesday.
Fried didn’t even let a lightning strike setting fire to her home’s attic her from participating in the discussion about this November’s election.
On a platform called Spoutible, Fried said Floridians have passed every initiative that has been put on the ballot.
“We’ve seen the people of our state, whether it is medical cannabis, whether it was fighting for a $15 minimum wage, whether it was restoring civil rights for those who have been incarcerated, (the initiatives) passed with overwhelming (support),” she said.
And that record of voting makes her more confident that the controversial amendments to legalize recreational marijuana and enshrine abortion rights are going to pass.
But even if they pass, Fried said there is more work to keep the initiatives in place.
“I think that the big question is making sure that we have enough Democrats elected in the Florida House and Senate to make sure that when they get implemented, that the will of the people isn’t taken away,” she said. “Which is what we’ve also seen every time the people vote and the people support these ballot initiatives, unfortunately, the Republican legislature gets in and screws it all up.”
Fried said she thinks the state’s ballot initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana and enshrine abortion rights represent true freedom in the state.
“I think that these are going to pass when people are sitting and having a choice. And they will go all the way down to the ballot, all the way down to Amendments 3 and 4,” she said. “At the end of the day, people are going to vote yes, because they’re tired of the war on drugs, and they’re tired of this game that the Republicans are playing with reproductive health care.”
Both ballot initiatives need at least 60% of voters to say yes for passage.
Fried said she thinks the state is a third of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. But recent reports have said Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than one million registered voters.
Fried said those figures are misleading and misrepresenting the voter advantage they have in the state. She called the GOP’s claims a mirage.
Legislation from 2022 changed how the state classifies active voters, and the mandate put about 930 thousand Democrats on the inactive rolls.
“(Republicans) want to take this number and they want to spew it out there that they’ve got a million more registered,” she said. “And that’s just not an accurate depiction of what is actually happening here in the state of Florida.”
Fried added a disproportionate amount of the inactive Democratic voters are Black and brown.
If someone is considered inactive, they are still eligible to vote in November’s election. To become active, all someone needs to do is vote. However, Fried recommends people should not wait until Election Day to fix it, instead take advantage of other methods to cast a ballot, like voting early.
At the last presidential debate, former President Donald Trump made comments about the Haitian community eating people’s pets.
But Florida has one of the largest Haitian populations in the country, around 300,000 people.
“And they’re strong and they’re united,” Fried said.
“(Republicans are) using the Haitian community and vilifying them and trying to lump in, this is what’s wrong with America and immigration reform,” she added. “And it’s just horrific tactics that they’re using and it’s just not going to work. This is not who America is.”
The early voting period in Florida is Oct. 26 through Nov. 2.
The general election is on Nov. 5.
