Republicans in Florida Legislature pass bill making voter registration harder
News and views for Floridians who care about democracy
By Mitch Perry
The Florida Legislature has approved a bill (HB 991) that will require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote, similar to federal legislation being advocated for by President Trump and Republicans in Congress.
It also will remove student IDs from being an acceptable form of identification at the polls.
The GOP-controlled Florida House approved the measure Thursday evening, 77-28. The vote came hours after the Senate approved the measure, mostly along party lines, 27-12.
Miami Republican Alexis Calatayud joined all the Democrats in opposing the measure, and independent Jason Pizzo joined the Republicans in supporting it. The bill will head to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk and he is expected to sign it into law. However, it will not go into effect until January 2027 — following November’s midterm elections.
It’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in Florida and, in 2020, the prohibition was enshrined into the Florida Constitution. But Republicans say the new measure will ensure “voter integrity.”
“Yes, we have safe elections in Florida, but they don’t stay safe and secure if we don’t pay attention to the large gaps that exist where we can address additional fraud,” said Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, who sponsored the measure in the Senate.
In 2025, the state found 198 “likely noncitizens who illegally registered and/or voted in Florida” out of the more than 13 million people on its voter rolls, according to a January 2026 report from the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security. The office referred 170 of them to state and federal law enforcement for further investigation and prosecution. The remaining 28 individuals it referred to the Division of Elections for list maintenance.
The bill says that the U.S. citizenship status of every Florida voter would need to be verified through the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles records before their voter registration is considered valid.
Applicants would need to prove their citizenship by providing one of the following:
A REAL ID-compliant driver’s license.
A U.S. birth certificate.
A current and valid U.S. passport.
A Consular Report of Birth Abroad from the U.S. Department of State.
A naturalization certificate, certificate of citizenship, certificate number, or an alien registration number issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
A current and valid photo identification issued by the federal government or from Florida that indicates U.S. citizenship.
An order from a federal court granting U.S. citizenship.
The bill’s supporters note that it would not affect voters who have already had their citizenship verified when they received a Florida driver’s license compliant with REAL ID standards.
How many eligible voters will this new law affect?
Critics say this hurts voters who lack those acceptable forms of ID.
“This legislation assumes voters have easy access to original and/or certified documents, but research conducted in 2023 by the Brennan Center for Justice indicates that more than 9% of American citizens of voting age don’t have their proof of citizenship readily available,” said League of Women Voters of Florida President Jessica Lowe-Minor in a written statement. “Only half of Americans have a passport, and a majority of married women are unlikely to have a birth certificate in their current legal name.”
During debate on the House floor last month, Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, introduced an amendment that she said would address people like her aunt, born at home in South Carolina during the Jim Crow era and never issued a birth certificate.
“As written, the bill will block eligible U.S. citizens from registering to vote and remove longtime voters from the rolls. This is reality, not conjecture,” she said.
Critics also note that after a similar law in Kansas was stuck down by the courts, it was revealed in litigation that the legislation blocked voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote.
Sen. Kristen Arrington, D-Kissimmee, said the most troubling aspect of the bill is that it wasn’t clear how many voters would be harmed. During a Senate floor debate Wednesday, Grall did cite statistics from the state from January that said 20.6 million people in Florida hold a REAL-ID-compliant driver’s license and 872,408 who did not.
Student IDs will no longer be acceptable
The Senate added an amendment previously passed in the House to remove certain forms of identification from being acceptable. Most controversially, student IDs will no longer be work — nor will retirement center IDs, neighborhood association IDs, military IDs, or debit or credit cards.
Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, filed an amendment (later voted down) to continue to allow student and retirement IDs to be acceptable. He said the exclusionary provision of the bill will have a “chilling effect” on the youth vote.
“When did students become the enemy?” asked Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee. “I can imagine a long line of students go to vote and they have their student IDs and they get turned away. They’re not coming back. They’re not going to fix it.”
But Republicans countered that a student ID does not indicate citizenship.
“We want people who are legal to vote, we want citizens to be able to vote,” said Sen. Ralph Massullo, R-Lecanto. “We don’t just want just someone that might have an ID for whatever reason and maybe their ID doesn’t necessarily identify that they’re a citizen of this state.”
Heated debate
An amendment requiring a candidate running for office to state in writing whether he or she holds dual citizen sparked intense pushback from House Democrats on the floor Thursday night.
“Dual citizenship doesn’t make somebody anymore or less loyal to this country,” said Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, D-Parkland.
“A lot of other things in my opinion would make people more or less loyal to this country, and it’s disturbing that out of all the things we could have chosen to add as a qualification, that this was the one that was so desperately important right now, especially at a time when our president mentions removing the U.S. citizenship from naturalized citizens.”
The bill also requires the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, starting in 2027, to include legal status on any new or renewed driver’s license or identification card.
The measure requires federal candidates in the state to disclose on their qualifying forms whether they intend to trade stocks if elected, and prohibits anyone from running if they changed their legal name in the 365 days before the qualifying deadline. The law would not apply to people who have changed their names after marriage, divorce, or adoption of children.
The measure is similar to the SAVE America Act which has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, in that it would require proof of citizenship to vote. The SAVE America Act would also require voter ID, which has been the law in Florida for decades.
The Florida Supervisors of Elections did not take a position on the bill.
Wendy Sartory Link, president of that organization, told the Phoenix, “We did provide some comments to it throughout the process, some of which were incorporated.”
The reporter on this story, Mitch Perry, has covered politics and government in Florida for more than two decades. Most recently he is the former politics reporter for Bay News 9. He has also worked at Florida Politics, Creative Loafing and WMNF Radio in Tampa. He was also part of the original staff when the Florida Phoenix was created in 2018.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:
Onward thru the fog
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you are a rational person living in the Free State of Florida, but there are plenty of smart, reasonable people just like you here. The purpose of this newsletter and the Tropic Press website is to provide a source of news and commentary that shines a light through this irrational fog. That includes both original reporting and shared stories such as this one today by Mitch Perry.
Thank you for your support as a subscriber. It is invaluable. This is especially so for those of you who have chosen to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Your contributions are making this possible.
J.C. Bruce
Sharing is caring
As this newsletter was written, Tropic Press was reaching more than 750,000 subscribers in Florida and elsewhere. With mid-term elections on the horizon, the more people we reach, the more effective we can be in helping turn this country around. You can play a vital role in that effort by sharing this newsletter with friends. If you are reading this as an email, simply forward it. Or you can use the link below. Thanks.
Time to take back our state
The upcoming midterm elections provide a generational opportunity to change the complexion of Florida’s political makeup. But for that to happen, Republican incumbents in the Legislature must face Democrats on the ballot. Currently, there are far too many seats where Republicans stand to run unopposed. Here’s how we can fix that:
When you can’t win honestly, rig it. That’s been standard US practice for 250 years
This kind of legislation really turns my stomach! Voting should be easy; prove residency and you get to vote. What’s really disturbing is that Republicans are doing this, not to solve any real problem, but instead to disenfranchise people who have the right to vote but lack “necessary credentials”. Perhaps these Republicans should read our Constitution! Their day in the sun will be short lived and many of our country’s ills rest on the backs of the power hungry GOP!