(The Center Square) – Florida’s sweeping election integrity bill has cleared the Legislature and now only requires the governor’s approval in order to become law.
House Bill 991, referred to as Florida’s version of the SAVE Act by bill sponsor Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, will enact widespread changes to Florida’s election law.
The bill requires voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. If they are not able to verify their citizenship, that individual will be tagged as an unverified voter who can cast a provisional ballot. They must confirm citizenship in order for the ballot to count.
The Florida DMV must include legal citizenship status on drivers licenses and state ID cards and include the type of proof the cardholder provided as evidence of their U.S. citizenship.
Student IDs would no longer be an acceptable form of voter ID.
A hotly debated point of contention is a new requirement that candidates running for political office must disclose if they hold dual citizenship.
“I think it’s harmful,” said Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, D-Parkland. “I think there are certain people who could be targeted based on their religion if they had to disclose, for example, if they had citizenship to the state of Israel. And so I think there are harms that could be had with this identity.”
Hunschofsky offered an amendment to do away with the disclosure requirement, but it failed.
When asked for the reasoning behind the dual citizenship disclosure requirement, Persons-Mulicka said it was about “transparency for the voters.”
“I feel like the implication when asking this question is that somehow if you have citizenship somewhere else that you are not patriotic and you cannot serve your community as well as somebody who doesn’t,” said Rep. Jennifer Harris, D-Orlando. “We want the right people, we want people who love their communities to serve in these places and therefore I think it’s important that we don’t put an otherization of a group of people simply for holding citizenship to another country.”
Rep. Jervonte Edmonds, D-West Palm Beach, said the bill raised concerns over equal protections for naturalized citizens, voters who have changed their names, and voters whose records don’t perfectly match state databases.
“Election integrity does matter to all of us here.,” Edmonds said. “We all can agree upon that. But protecting elections should never come at the cost of constitutional voting rights.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis is likely to sign the bill into law as he took to social media Thursday to post about the vote on the bill.
“The Florida version of the SAVE Act is about to pass the Legislature,” the governor wrote. “Although Florida has already enacted much of what the federal legislation contemplates, this will further fortify our state as the leader in election integrity.”
