By Mitch Perry, The Florida Phoenix
The major election bill being pushed by Florida Republicans in the Legislature this session would require proof of American citizenship to register to vote, similar to federal legislation advocated by President Trump and Republicans in Congress.
The proposal (SB 1334) advanced on a party-line vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Transportation, Tourism, and Economic Development Wednesday night, with all of the Democrats on the committee opposing the measure.
Nearly 80% of Floridians approved a constitutional amendment in 2020 establishing that only a U.S. citizen can vote. But voting integrity advocates argue the state needs to be more vigorous in ensuring that non-citizens aren’t eligible to vote in the Sunshine State.
The proposal moving through both chambers of the Legislature 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 a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license, birth certificate, valid passport, or other methods.
The department said last May that 99% of Florida residents held driver’s licenses that were REAL ID-compliant.
Democrats and voting rights advocates insist they are not defending the rights of non-U.S. citizens to vote but contend that, under the bill, a certain percentage of U.S. citizens will end up being removed from the voting rolls because they can’t provide the required documents.
At issue during discussion of the proposal in a committee meeting revolved around out-of-state college students who attend universities in Florida but hold driver’s licenses from their home states. Orlando Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith provided a hypothetical case involving a Georgia resident attending Florida State University in Tallahassee.
“They need to be a Florida resident. And to be a Florida resident, you have to have a Florida Identification Card and you accept Florida as where you live,” responded Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, sponsoring the bill in the Senate.
“So, you can’t provide a state of Georgia driver’s license. … They would need to change their driver’s license or ID card to Florida, and then they would provide that to the supervisor in order to show that they are in fact a resident in the state of Florida.”
Several college students who spoke during the public comment during the meeting protested that Sen. Grall wasn’t accurate.
Allysa White, a 26-year-old who recently received a master’s degree from the University of South Florida, said she grew up in Maryland before moving to Hillsborough County to attend the University of Tampa. She did not have a Florida’s driver’s license when she initially registered to vote. “I had my student ID and I had my address on campus to register to vote,” she said.
Gerri Kramer, speaking for Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer, confirmed to the Phoenix that “voters do not provide us with proof of residency when they register to vote.”
“A student can register at their parents’ home address if they consider that their permanent address, and can also include a mailing address on their application if they need their voter correspondence to be sent to them on campus,” she said — adding that the state’s online Florida voter registration application “does require a Florida driver’s license for processing.”
Later in the meeting, Grall said that if that if in fact “that loophole exists, then it’s a loophole that should be closed. If you reside in another state, you should not vote in the state of Florida. So, you have to pick a state to live in.”
Because the committee meeting ended before lawmakers had a chance to vote on the bill, legislators came back in the late afternoon.
Boca Raton Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky kicked off that discussion by reading information off of the Leon County Supervisor of Elections website saying, “as long as you live in Leon County, you can register to vote here, even if you still use your home address for other documents or pay out-of-state tuition.”
“So I think we had it wrong earlier,” she said to Sen. Grall.
Grall later responded that students needed to be legal residents of Florida to vote in Florida elections.
“The individual has to determine and know that this is where they are establishing legal residence,” she said.”This has to be where they both truly intend to to reside and made overt acts that demonstrate that intention and thereby give up residency in another state.”
Whatever happened to Kansas?
Democrats and voting-rights advocates argued their concerns about U.S. citizens being knocked off the voting rolls are well founded. They cite what happened when Kansas passed a similar proposal in 2011 that resulted in more than 31,000 U.S. citizens having their voter registrations blocked.
A U.S. federal judge found the law unconstitutional in June 2018, ruling that the law violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the National Voter Registration Act. That ruling was affirmed by a federal appeals court in 2020.
House Speaker Daniel Perez said he isn’t concerned the bill would block any U.S. citizens from voting.
“I don’t think that any bill that’s moving through the House is going to take away the ability of U.S. citizens to be able to vote,” he had told reporters Tuesday. “I have no idea what happened in Kansas. I haven’t seen that. But that’s not a concern that we have.”
While most of the public speakers opposed the proposal, there were some vocal supporters.
“Every vote cast by an illegal, non-citizen cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen,” said Cindy Skarda. “Eight states already require citizenship to vote.” (According to Ballotpedia, 18 states include language explicitly prohibiting noncitizen voting in their state constitutions).
If signed into law, the measure would go into effect on July 1, before Florida’s primary elections on Aug. 18 and General Election on Nov. 3.
The committee vote sends the measure to the Senate Rules Committee before reaching the floor of that chamber. The bill’s House companion (HB 991) has already passed through its two assigned committees and is headed to the full House for consideration.
One difference in the two bills is when they would go into effect. The House bill would start on Jan. 1, 2027, while Grall’s bill in the Senate would start on July 1, 2026 — a date that the Democrats said Wednesday was too soon to make for an orderly transition.
Election bills to require stricter voter registration checks in Florida near final votes added by Staff on
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@Common Sense –
“I think Mr. Lyle identified your problem very succinctly when he stated, “You poor ill-educated dear.”
Good one!
Why not look up what Trumps election fraud committee found? Please post the stunning results! Why not look up what happened to the Kansas law similar to this one? Why not read the CATO Institutes findings regarding election fraud regarding non citizens voting?
If I am wrong on those fronts, it should be easy to demonstrate it. I just don’t get why you result to calling me names instead of just showing where I am wrong?
@ Mr/Mrs/Ms/They/Them Provocateur,
I think Mr. Lyle identified your problem very succinctly when he stated, “You poor ill-educated dear.”
I look forward to your future comments when, hopefully, you will know of what you speak.
@Edward Lyle –
“Bloviate your nonsensical banality all you wish. ”
Oh man. You really got me there. Might have to stop and reconsider.
” do you have an ID”
Yes. George Soros bought it for me!
““people of color””
I just love that you cannot help yourself! That’s the true face of conservatism showing anyways!
@CommonSense –
Kansas tried a similar law. It was struck down by the federal circuit court because it was found to imposed an undue burden and was not justified by evidence of widespread fraud. Then the US U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found the same thing on appeal. Smooth-brained Kansas conservatives tried to bring it to the Supreme Court, who refused to hear it. But I’m sure you are more of a constitutional scholar! Keep up the good work!
@Earnest P. Worrell –
“DSP, all Florida driver licenses are Real ID. It’s been that way for a few years now.”
Funny, I can’t seem to find anything in the Constitution about a REAL Id being an OK thing to mandate to vote? Weird! In any case, what if you are too old to drive? What if you’ve had DUIs? What if you are blind and literally cannot drive? You are creating an undue burden in absence of any evidence of widescale fraud. This is why a similar law put in place by Kansas smooth-brains failed in the courts.
“On a scale of watcher of The View to Rachel Maddow can redefine the word ‘literally,’ how dumb are you?”
Considering you seem completely unaware that a similar law has already been struck down, you might reconsider how cavalierly you throw out accusations of people being dumb. But you do you, man.
@ DeepStatePropagandist: You poor ill-educated dear. Bloviate your nonsensical banality all you wish. The informed and educated understand reality.
Hey, here’s a simple question for ya… do you have an ID, or do you count yourself among the oppressed and ignorant? … you know, those you folks call “people of color”.
@ Mr/Mrs/Ms/They/Them Provocateur,
You quoted:
From the Constitution: “Citizens cannot be required to pay a tax to vote in federal elections (President, Vice President, Congress).”
Paying a PROCESSING FEE to get a Driver’s License, Birth Certificate or Passport is NOT a TAX as you quoted from the Constitution.
It appears you’re stretching the definition of the word TAX quite a bit in your argument.
DSP, all Florida driver licenses are Real ID. It’s been that way for a few years now.
On a scale of watcher of The View to Rachel Maddow can redefine the word ‘literally,’ how dumb are you?
@Earnest P. Worrell –
“The point about using the ID in so many other DAILY contexts is to illustrate that the ID is already owned by citizens. You need it for so many things such as driving a car, buying tobacco or alcohol, various events or transportation solutions requiring ID, bank accounts, etc.”
Are the actions of driving a car, buying tobacco, or alcohol defined as rights granted under the Constitution or not? You seem to be confused on this point? Of course, if you are only hyper obsessive about *some parts* of the Constitution being taken literally (ie., 2A), but don’t really care about the other parts, I can at least make sense out of your argument.
Want to force people to get a REAL ID, or a passport to vote? Amend the Constitution.
@Edward Lyle –
“Still waiting for one person (of color of course), just one, to come public explaining how they were prevented from voting because they had no ID.”
This is because they would have been given a provisional ballot.
What you should be asking yourself is, why hasn’t Ronnie come public explaining the massive failure of his voter fraud taskforce to find meaningful bad actors? Ron DeSantis already put a task force together to tackle ‘voter fraud’. They got 1.4M from the legislature and successfully prosecuted 13 people. So right over 100K *per voter* in a state with 11M voters in 2020. You can do the math on if those 13 people might have made a meaningful difference in outcomes. Trump did the same thing and got the same results.
This is a solution to an imaginary problem. If there were significant instances of voter fraud happening, why hasn’t Trump shown us the results of his nationwide task force on the issue? There is a message here.
Voting is a Constitutional right. The Constitution is clear that you cannot force people to pay in order to do it. “Citizens cannot be required to pay a tax to vote in federal elections (President, Vice President, Congress).”
You seem fixated on color of people. What a surprise.
DSP, no, it’s not a poll tax.
The point about using the ID in so many other DAILY contexts is to illustrate that the ID is already owned by citizens. The need for ID is ubiquitous. You need it for so many things such as driving a car, buying tobacco or alcohol, various events or transportation solutions requiring ID, bank accounts, etc. That requiring that same ID to be presented is perfectly rational…unlike you.
@ DeepStatePropagandist: You poor dear. Still waiting for one person (of color of course), just one, to come public explaining how they were prevented from voting because they had no ID. I have, however, seen several people (of color of course) explain how insulting it is for the “Karen Wing” of the Democrat Party to assume they are too stupid to get an ID.
No doubt the “Karen Wing” of the Democrat Party will pay… errr, I mean find… someone to put in front of a camera to make such a claim. Unfortunately, they will forget to tell that person to keep their $400 headphones and $1500 iPhone out of view.
Voting Registration should be very strict. Should be a minimum of Living here for 30 Days (with proof) before you can Register to Vote here. Once you Vote, you can not change your Vote. Mail In Ballots should only be allowed for Military deployed over Seas, the Elderly and those with Disabilities. No Early Voting, add more Voting Places if needed. If Ballots are not received by the time the Polls close on Voting Day, they are Destroyed. ANYONE caught tampering with a Ballot is Arrested and losses the Privilege of Voting for Life and Jail Time, same for stuffing Ballot Boxes. Voting MUST be taken seriously.
From the text: “Applicants would need to prove their citizenship by providing a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license, birth certificate, valid passport, or other methods.”
From the Constitution: “Citizens cannot be required to pay a tax to vote in federal elections (President, Vice President, Congress).”
The law above, while perhaps in good conscious, means people must spend money to vote. Voting is a Constitutionally allocated right. This is not ambiguous.
Queue up the people eager to disenfranchise:
“You need a drivers license to board an airplane”
Yes. Boarding an airplane is not a right that is specified in the Constitution. Right?
“You need identification to rent a hotel room.”
Yes. Renting a hotel room is not a right that is specified in the Constitution. Right?
This is the part where conservatives demonstrate that they are hypocrites. (again) When it comes to the 2A, they are adamant that we take the exact text of the Constitution. OK. But when it comes to making people pay money to vote, they’re going to be OK with it because they don’t really care all that much about the Constitution if it means poor people are less likely to be able to vote.
Trump had a dedicated committee to weed out ‘voter fraud’ his entire first presidency. What did it find? Nothing. Non citizens just aren’t voting at meaningful levels. Would love to see some of the people about to bleat about this post prove me wrong.
This is about voter suppression and it is disgusting, but unsurprising.