Was Florida one of the first states to restrict ballot harvesting?

Florida placed specific restrictions on ballot harvesting in 2021, five years after the first state did so and following a handful of others.

Ballot harvesting is the collecting of absentee or mail-in ballots from voters and submitting them to polling places. Most states have laws about who can submit ballots for others, but specific restrictions vary.

In Florida, Senate Bill 90 dictates that only immediate family members or legal guardians can submit a ballot for another person. A person can submit up to two additional ballots along with their own each election cycle. This is the bill Gov. Ron DeSantis referenced when claiming Florida was one of the first states to “ban” ballot harvesting.

However, Arizona was the first to place specific restrictions on the practice in 2016. Other states, such as Alabama, have had laws in place for decades that indirectly restricted the practice.