Yet again, Florida lawmakers and advocates on both sides are clashing over election bills — and that’s a harbinger of what is to come in this election year.
This week, a contentious measure (SB 1334/HB 991) would prevent non-U.S. citizens from registering to vote, and legislators passed it out of its first House and Senate committees. Opponents filled the meeting rooms on Wednesday and Thursday, arguing that Floridians had passed a 2020 constitutional amendment preventing those who are not citizens from voting in state elections, so the bills aren’t needed and would only create barriers.
But supporters said the legislation is necessary to tighten the requirements for proof of citizenship.
In both chambers, the proposal directs the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to collaborate with election officials to verify voter citizenship.
The Senate measure, sponsored by Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, would add to the oath which a potential voter must take: “I further do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I am a United States Citizen and that I have carefully reviewed the instructions for completing the Florida Voter Registration Application. I understand that if I have provided false information on this application, I could be subject to criminal penalties, fines, or imprisonment for perjury, and if not a United States citizen, deportation from the United States.”
Equal access to the ballot?
The House measure, which is sponsored by Reps. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, and Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, says “the term ‘racketeering activity’ under the Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act includes certain election code violations.” According to the bill analysis, “any violation of Chapter 104 in the Florida Election Code can be prosecuted as racketeering under the RICO Act.”
Fighting the bills were advocacy groups such as the League of Women Voters, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Equal Ground, All Voting Is Local Action, the ACLU of Florida, the NAACP and Common Cause. They said students, seniors, people with disabilities, low-income people, and married people who have changed their names would not have equal access to the ballot. For instance, low-income people might not be able to afford to obtain their original birth certificates, passports or proof of name changes to verify their citizenship.
“Instead of expanding access, we are restricting it,” said Rep. RaShon Young, D-Orlando, in the House Government Operations Committee debate on Thursday. But Persons-Mulicka said the bill is non-partisan, pointing to the nearly 80 percent approval the ballot initiative received in 2020.
Senate sponsor Grall, in the Wednesday debate, said as of last May, 99 percent of the REAL ID identification carried by many Floridians were compliant with her bill’s requirements. REAL ID cards are state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards issued by Florida and other states.
“If you have a valid REAL ID and you are a citizen, you should not have to reprove it,” Grall said. “That’s what this bill says.”
Both the House and Senate bills passed along party lines in the Republican-led statehouse. The Senate measure passed the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee 5-2. The House bill passed the Government Operations Committee 11-5. (SB 1334/HB 99.)
Punching down on voters
“A secure, citizen-only voting process is the best defense against disenfranchisement,” Secretary of State Cord Byrd, an appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, told the Florida Trident in an email. “When every legal vote is counted and every illegal vote is prevented, people trust the process, and we see high voter turnout.”
As HB 991 passed out of committee Thursday afternoon, the League of Women Voters of Florida put out a press release, citing research conducted in 2023 by the Brennan Center for Justice. The League contends that more than 9 percent of American citizens of voting age don’t have their proof of citizenship readily available – which, in Florida, would be approximately 1.6 million people.
“Florida is punching down on voters,” said Ion Sancho, Leon County’s supervisor of elections from 1989 to 2017; he was a Democrat before and after his service. “I’ve watched as Florida has transformed from a state who really cared about its citizen voters, who promoted voting, to a state now in which voting is considered disfavored. And this has to do with the partisan takeover of the Florida Legislature.”
But Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville and chair of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, scoffed.
“If Mr. Sancho was right, why is it that we have record numbers of people voting?” Gaetz asked.
He acknowledged Florida’s population is increasing, but added that “the percentage of voting is increasing in many areas around the state. I don’t believe that there’s any evidence of Republicans punching down on people being unable to vote. I haven’t heard of any.”
In the House on Thursday, Persons-Mulicka agreed, saying the state had seen historic levels of turnout in 2024.
When Grall’s bill came up in Gaetz’s committee, Senate Ethics and Elections, the debate was robust.
“I am 65 years old. I bring it up because I came up during an era where being able to vote was not an easy thing,” said Junarion Hubbard of Jacksonville. “I pray that you do not take this country back to the time when I was growing up. I know what my parents went through to vote.” Hubbard is public relations officer for The Continental Societies of Jacksonville, Inc., according to the Division of Corporations in Florida.
Karen Jaroch of the conservative advocacy group, Heritage Action, pointed to 2020, when nearly 80 percent of Florida voters approved the constitutional amendment for only U.S. citizens vote in the state.
“Yet we lack a comprehensive system to verify citizenship,” Jaroch said. “A law without enforcement is merely a suggestion. SB 1334 finally provides that enforcement.”
To clarify, while nearly 80 percent of voters approved Amendment 1 in 2020, the language in the measure did not specify greater demands to prove one’s citizenship. What it did was change the phrase “Every citizen” to “Only a citizen.”
Grall said all voters will have an opportunity to cast provisional ballots and to cure them. She also said she looked forward to hearing from supervisors of election.
“We’ll take the feedback,” Grall said. “This is the first committee. This is meant to streamline processes and ensure that it’s easier for people to vote, and I hope that by the time we get to the end, there’s more confidence that this process will do that.”
Eligible to have a driver’s license or not?
Wendy Sartory Link, president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, said her group has no official position on the measure. The election supervisor of Palm Beach County, Sartory Link was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2019.
“We are not policy makers. We are administrators,” she said. “But we point out to them the impact of their policymaking.”
An extensive amendment to SB 1334 earlier this week removed provisions to audit all election results before certifying them.
Desmond Meade, the president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) and chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, compares the voter registration process to walking into the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to get a driver’s license.
“They can immediately tell me if I’m eligible to have a driver’s license or not. They can immediately tell me if I have any outstanding legal or financial obligations,” he said in an interview with the Florida Trident. “And in any county in the state of Florida, they can tell me how much it is, and what I need to pay to get my driver’s license reinstated.
“If the state of Florida can do that for driver’s licenses, they should be able to do the same thing for voter identification cards.”
In 2021, Meade won a MacArthur “genius grant” for leading the 2018 ballot initiative that restored voting rights to more than 1.4 million Floridians with previous felony convictions who have completed their sentences. He’s a “returning citizen” himself.
“If our elected people are considered public servants, then that means that we hired them to do a job – which means that we should be allowed in the managing process. And so, a state should never diminish the owners’ obligation or right to decide who is going to represent them. We’re the boss, aren’t we?”
The ballot initiative passed with 65 percent of the vote. The year after, the Legislature made it mandatory for ex-felons to pay their legal financial obligations before they can vote.
This year, two measures sponsored by Senate Democrats aim to clarify when former felons can vote. Both passed their committees unanimously on Wednesday. One is SB 748 by Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee, which was approved by Senate Ethics and Elections committee.
It would require that sentencing scoresheets include a notice informing defendants about the impact of their sentences on their voting rights and that defendants receive a copy of the scoresheet containing this notice before their sentencing.
“The purpose is simple,” said Bracy Davis. “It is clarity.”
Other election bills
Meanwhile, Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, is sponsoring SB 132, which would require the Florida Commission on Offender Review to track whether ex-felons have met all the requirements for voting. The commission would be required to create a public database for this purpose by 2029 and update it monthly. That bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice.
Sen. Polsky is also sponsoring a measure (SB 460) which would require the governor to call special primary elections and special elections within a specified timeframe after a vacancy occurs. Reps. Mike Gottlieb, D-Davie, and Daryl Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale are co-sponsoring the House companion, (HB 597).
“When seats sit vacant, constituents have no elected voice during active lawmaking, sometimes for months, weakening both their influence and their confidence in democracy,” Polsky said Wednesday in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice. “This bill restores accountability.”
Sen. Bracy Davis is also sponsoring SB 1598, which would require that the Secretary of State be elected, rather than appointed, and authorize someone who meets the voter registration requirements to register and cast a ballot on the same day. It would require the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to notify the Department of State no later than 30 days after any change to a voter’s driver license number or identification card number. It would require the Department of State to support third-party voter registration organizations.
“We just took all of the really bad election bills, and we basically unrung that bell,” said Bracy Davis. “As a messaging bill, but we know that in Florida the federal Voting Rights Act has been gutted quite a bit. And so, this is our answer to that.”
Brad Ashwell, of the nonpartisan All Voting is Local Florida, called the provisions of SB 1598 “a laundry list of good things.
“This is an example of all the things lawmakers should be doing and could be doing to expand voting rights and protect voters from discriminatory practices,” he said. His organization pursues free and fair elections and access to voting.
Meanwhile, most Senate election bills are moving through the process, but Democratic House bills have yet to be heard in committees, making passage doubtful.
Sen. Gaetz says he doesn’t like considering election bills during election years.
“As recently as yesterday, there were changes being made, and I suspect there’ll be more changes,” he said. “So, it might be a little too early to either pull the fire alarm or declare victory.”
Margie Menzel has worked at WFSU, the News Service of Florida and Gannett News Service. She earned her B.A. in history at Vanderbilt University and her M.S. in journalism at Florida A&M University. The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state.
