DOVER — Sen. Colin Bonini couldn’t stop the bills he didn’t like from passing Thursday — including a bill to expand access to voting by mail — but the senator representing Dover did succeed in inflicting some procedural pain on the Senate floor.

The Senate adjourned past midnight. That it would drag on for many hours longer than normal was all but guaranteed at the outset — the docket was packed with gun bills that had drawn heated debate across the hall in the House of Representatives. But Sen. Bonini tacked on some additional time as he threw up multiple bureaucratic hurdles to passing several uncontroversial bills in the first half of the session.

Sen. Bonini, a Republican, justified his moves to slow down the Senate in a statement Friday by citing his objections to the content of the voting and gun bills and the speed at which they have moved through both chambers.

“To be frank, citizens’ Second Amendment rights were stripped and our elections will be compromised,” Sen. Bonini said.

The senator made his first move by forcing every bill on the day’s consent agenda to be voted on individually. The consent agenda is a group of normally uncontroversial bills that can be pass together — unless a lawmaker objects.

The next bill up to plate was Senate Bill 268, a rather humble bill that simply repealed a paragraph of Delaware Code having to do with “control and supervision of law libraries.”

Sen. Bonini attempted to have it read out in full instead of just by its title, but he was rebuffed by Sen. Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, who countered that bills up for their third and final reading are only read by title only, according to the legislative rules. He chastised his colleague’s actions while acknowledging there was nothing he could do to stop the procedural maneuvers.

“Whether or not they violate Senate rules or not, they certainly violate Senate norms, and that is the way today is going to go apparently,” Sen. Townsend said. “Staff members’ and members’ of the public and others’ time is going to be spent in ways it should not.”

Sen. Bonini was still able to force a vote to allow the Senate to consider SB 268 before proceeding. That chamber voted to move forward. The Dover senator then motioned to table the bill, which forced another vote. The motion failed. Sen. Bonini then threw up a third hurdle, moving to postpone the bill.

Bethany Hall-Long — who as lieutenant governor also presides over the Senate as its president — determined that the motion to postpone was “frivolous,” according to legislature’s rules, and moved to proceed to a final vote on the bill. But Sen. Bonini was ready.

“So that motion is out of order so I can’t object to your ruling? Is that what you’re telling me?,” he asked the lieutenant governor.

“You could — you could object, you could object,” Lt. Gov. Hall-Long said.

“I object,” Sen. Bonini immediately replied. That forced the Senate to vote once more to proceed before the final vote could take place. The final tally? — 21 votes for SB 268, none — including Sen. Bonini — against.

Two more bills proceeded this way, even as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle voted against Sen. Bonini’s motions. Things got a little disorderly. Lawmakers huddled to talk in small groups around the back of the chamber. Some left the room. After about 45 minutes of stalling, at about 4:30 p.m., the Senate decided it was a good time to take a break.

Shortly after the chamber reconvened two hours later — in addition to whatever discussions took place, lawmakers also had dinner — Sen. Bonini’s objections died down.

Close to 11 p.m., after many hours of debate on gun legislation, the vote by mail bill was brought before the Senate. Sen. Bonini tucked away one last trick up his sleeve — withdrawing 23 amendments to SB 320 that he’d filed the same day, each of which would have changed the date the bill went into effect.

He did score a victory, though — the Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass a separate amendment which will require voters using mail-in ballots to provide an identification number, such as their driver’s license number.

"I am incredibly appreciative of Senator Gay for her willingness to work with me to add an amendment that provides for true voter ID on mail-in balloting," Sen. Bonini wrote in a reply to emailed questions from a reporter. He added that, while he hopes he will be proven wrong, he predicted there would be "much abuse" of the system.

"At least we have a process to help ensure that the ballot being mailed in is from the actual voter," Sen. Bonini wrote.

Before roll call, Sen. Bonini raised the specter of voter fraud in his appeal to his colleagues to vote against the bill. (Instances of proven voter fraud are vanishingly rare.)

“When you go and look at the voting tabulations, you’re going to find lots and lots of people who have either, A, never voted before or, B, almost never vote. They’re going to magically vote. Either absentee or mail-in. And if you’re going to tell me that all those are legitimate votes, I don’t believe you,” Sen. Bonini said.

The bill’s prime sponsor, Sen. Kyle Evans Gay, D-Talleyville, said the bill would make it easier for people to vote, especially those who might find it difficult or even impossible to make it to a polling station. Sen. Gay said that was nearly her in 2018, when she was due to give birth at any time on Election Day.

“I was nine months pregnant and there was nothing under the law that would allow me to do anything except for hope that I didn’t go into early labor on Election Day or before Election Day and become disenfranchised,” she said, adding that it was only because of luck that she was able to vote.

“We cannot possibly numerate all of the reasons why someone could want to vote by mail. But what we can do is safely and securely expand the opportunity so that we don’t have to enumerate write those reasons.”

This article has been updated with additional comments from Sen. Bonini that were received after publication.