{"id":4418,"date":"2026-03-13T03:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/4418\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T03:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:11:07","slug":"florida-legislature-oks-new-citizenship-id-rules-for-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/4418\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Legislature OKs new citizenship, ID rules for voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans in the Florida House and Senate passed legislation Thursday requiring citizenship verification for all registered voters in the state, a central element of President Donald Trump\u2019s demands for sweeping election-law changes.<\/p>\n

The measure also would restrict the kinds of IDs Florida voters can use to identify themselves at the polls. Student IDs and retirement center IDs would no longer be valid; driver\u2019s licenses, state ID cards, military ID and licenses to carry concealed weapons would still be accepted as proof of voter identity.<\/p>\n

Voting rights advocates and Democrats said that House Bill 991 sounds as if it contains common-sense safeguards. But they warned that it could cause chaos for the voting public and election administrators \u2014 and prevent untold numbers of citizens from voting.<\/p>\n

Sponsors made one major concession to critics: delaying the effective date. Instead of going into effect on July 1, just weeks before the Aug. 18 primary and months before the Nov. 3 general election, the provisions won\u2019t be effective until after this year\u2019s midterm election.<\/p>\n

Opponents said there isn\u2019t any evidence of more than a handful of noncitizens voting or other voter fraud in Florida elections. \u201cThere is no reason for these changes,\u201d said state Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat. \u201cThere is no evidence of noncitizens voting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate sponsor, state Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, cited two criminal prosecutions of non-citizen voting \u2014 but said that supported her view of the need for change, not the opponents\u2019 view that there isn\u2019t a major problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of you know people who have lost the election by a very small vote margin. So what is our tolerance for fraud and lack of integrity?\u201d Grall said. \u201cAnd yes, we have safe elections in Florida, but they don\u2019t stay safe and secure if we don\u2019t pay attention to the large gaps that exist where we can address additional fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a previous debate, state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, the House sponsor, cited a state report about 2025 election investigations that referred to 198 \u201clikely noncitizens who illegally registered and\/or voted in Florida.\u201d That works out to less than 1 possible noncitizen for every 70,000 registered voters.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Persons-Mulicka said it was essential to pass the bill. \u201cToday, Florida continues to lead the nation in election integrity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Jervonte \u201cTae\u201d Edmonds, D-West Palm Beach, urged his colleagues to vote \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElection integrity does matter to all of us here. We all can agree on that. But protecting elections should never come at the cost of constitutional voting rights,\u201d Edmonds said.<\/p>\n

Key provisions<\/p>\n

Citizenship verification: The state voter registration database would be matched with the driver\u2019s license database at the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which has been verifying citizenship as part of bringing state drivers into compliance with federal REAL ID requirements.<\/p>\n

Grall said so many people would have their citizenship verified that the behind-the-scenes process would be invisible to most people.<\/p>\n

Opponents pointed to more than 800,000 people with driver\u2019s licenses and state ID cards that don\u2019t have REAL ID. And they could be flagged and required to present proof of citizenship \u2014 a birth certificate or passport \u2014 to stay registered.<\/p>\n

And people who change their registrations, by changing political party affiliation or changing their names \u2014 mostly women through marriage and divorce \u2014 would be forced to prove their citizenship.<\/p>\n

Identification: The legislation would scale back the IDs voters can present at the polls. Democrats argued strongly against removing student identification and retirement system identification, which have been accepted for decades for Florida voting.<\/p>\n

They said many college students don\u2019t have driver\u2019s licenses and many older residents of retirement communities also haven\u2019t renewed their licenses because they no longer drive. As a result, Democrats warned, those groups could be prevented from casting ballots.<\/p>\n

Grall said it was a matter of ensuring people aren\u2019t using counterfeit ID. Polsky suggested it was a ploy.\u00a0\u201cThis is disenfranchisement. And we know it\u2019s going to affect certain communities more than others. And isn\u2019t that the point of the bill?\u201d Polsky said.<\/p>\n

Trump has pushed Congress hard to enact new restrictions on voting, including citizenship verification, in time for this year\u2019s elections. He wants voter ID requirements nationwide, something Florida already has \u2014 and the new legislation is tightening.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers devoted several hours to debating House Bill 991 on Thursday. It passed the Senate 27-12. All Republicans, except state Sen. Alexis Calatayud of Miami-Dade County, voted yes. All Democrats voted \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

The House gave final approval on a 77-28 vote, sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis. His appointee as the state\u2019s top election official, Secretary of State Cord Byrd, has supported citizenship verification, though he hasn\u2019t publicly advocated for the bill.<\/p>\n

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.<\/p>\n

\"StateState Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, argued against Republican-sponsored changes in Florida election law on Thursday, March 12, 2026. (Florida Channel\/courtesy)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republicans in the Florida House and Senate passed legislation Thursday requiring citizenship verification for all registered voters in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3607,286,817,3610,8,3611,3612,3608,795,3613,9,3609,67,3606,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-4418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-broward-county","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-miami-dade-county","16":"tag-national-news","17":"tag-national-politics","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-palm-beach-county","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-social","22":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116219680062955389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}