Mr. DeSantis, who had been facing pressure from conservatives to greenlight a review of the 2020 election results in the state, has urged state lawmakers to send new election measures to his desk. One proposal would increase the penalty for the collection of more than two ballots by a third party from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. Another calls for more routine maintenance of voter rolls, which voting rights advocates say would lead to more “purges” of eligible voters.
The governor said last month that the prospective election law enforcement unit would “have the ability to investigate any crimes involving the election” and would include sworn law enforcement officers, investigators and a statewide prosecutor. Critics argued that such a unit could intimidate voters and be prone to abuse by politicians.
In New Hampshire, where Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, faces a potentially challenging re-election bid, Republicans have proposed to scrap the ballot-scanning machines that the state has used for decades in favor of hand-counting.
That bill — introduced by Mark Alliegro, a Republican state representative who declined to comment about it — has drawn opposition from Democrats, who say that a lengthy delay between Election Day and the results would create an opening for those who want to challenge the election’s legitimacy.
“Republicans are trying to sow distrust and discord in the process,” said Matt Wilhelm, a Democratic state representative. “If they’ve got an additional window of time of hours, days, weeks when Granite Staters don’t know the results of the election that they just participated in, that’s going to cast doubt on our democratic institutions.”
A separate G.O.P. bill in New Hampshire introduced in the legislature’s prefiling portal contained a brief description: “Provide that only residents of the state may vote in elections.”
Republicans have long tried to tighten residency requirements in New Hampshire, whose small population means that the elimination of even relatively small numbers of college students from the voter rolls could help give the G.O.P. an edge in close elections. This year, the state’s Supreme Court unanimously rejected a 2017 state law requiring proof of residence to vote.