Voting Rights Groups File Suit as DeSantis Signs Proof-of-Citizenship Law

While Congress remains deadlocked on the SAVE America Act that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, that requirement will soon become the law of the land in Florida now that Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed the latest “voting integrity ” legislation.

The governor signed the bill (HB 991) into law Wednesday in The Villages following its approval by the Florida Legislature last month.  The law requires people who are registering to vote to produce evidence of citizenship, such as a valid passport or birth certificate. It will take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Minutes after he signed the bill, a coalition of voting rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new law, arguing it would disenfranchise eligible voters and create unnecessary barriers to the franchise. They noted that thousands of Floridians lack ready access to those documents.

“Florida’s new ‘show your papers’ law is a blatant attempt to add unnecessary barriers to the ballot box,” said Jonathan Topaz, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

“This law targets Florida’s most vulnerable voters — older Black voters who grew up in the Jim Crow South, naturalized citizens, transgender people, low-income voters, voters with disabilities — all in service of perpetuating the fact-free myth of widespread non-citizen registration and voting. We bring this lawsuit to ensure that Florida cannot block its eligible voters from exercising their fundamental right to vote because of missing or mismatched paperwork.”

Floridians approved a constitutional amendment in 2020 requiring that only U.S. citizens are qualified to vote in state elections.

In addition to requiring proof of citizenship, the bill:

• Requires all voting to be done using paper ballots.
• Requires the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to include legal status on any new, replacement, or renewal driver’s license or identification card.
• Requires candidates to disclose dual citizenship they may possess.
• Requires new and returning candidates for Congress to disclose their intentions regarding stock trading while in office.
• Removes student IDs from being an acceptable form of identification to show at the polls.

That last measure has been blasted by Democrats and voting rights advocates, who contend it will disenfranchise college students.

“When did students become the enemy?” asked Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee, when the bill was being debated on the Senate floor last month. “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 DeSantis said Wednesday, “Student ID does not mean that you are a resident of the state of Florida.”

“Student ID means you’re going to school,“ he said. “You gotta have a valid ID that proves that you are a resident of the state of Florida.”

Advocates for the bill say that the vast majority of Floridians won’t be affected. They maintain people can register with a Florida driver’s license that is Real ID-compliant, which records show more than 90% of Floridians possess.

During a debate on the Senate floor last month, Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, cited statistics from the state from January that said 20.6 million people in Florida held a REAL-ID-compliant driver’s license and 872,408 did not.

Another tweaking of ‘the Gold Standard’

The GOP-controlled Legislature has passed major election reforms every year since the 2020 presidential election. That’s when President Donald Trump and many of his supporters alleged widespread voter fraud, although that has never been proven in court (and in Florida, Trump defeated Joe Biden by more than 3 points that year).

Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia boasted about those bills during the press conference, with both men insisting that while the state is now the “gold standard” on how to run successful elections, there can be no “resting on its laurels” to ensure election integrity.

Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, was the sponsor of the House bill. She disputed the charges by critics that there is little fraud at the polls.

“Election fraud is real,” she said. “It’s not a matter of if fraud will occur, it’s a matter of when, and it’s our job to put in place safeguards to protect our elections from that fraud. No state does a better job of that than Florida.”

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 by the 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.

Voting rights group allege the bill is unconstitutional

A coalition of voting rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida Rising Together, Florida Immigrant Coalition, and Common Cause, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and the supervisors of elections for Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties.

The complaint alleges that the requirement for proof of U.S. citizenship violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by imposing unlawful burdens on the fundamental right to vote, including restrictive voter registration requirements.

DeSantis predicts the law will stand. He mentioned in his press conference about how previous election laws have been struck down the at the federal trial court level but subsequently upheld by the more conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

“I sign it, they sue us,” he said. “They go to a liberal judge. The liberal judge sides with them. Then we appeal, and then we win. So, that’s probably what will happen on this — I’ve just seen it enough.”

At the beginning of his address, DeSantis went down memory lane, reminiscing about his election victory for governor in 2018, which took several days to call following a machine recount after Broward and Palm Beach counties did not report all of their election totals by the end of Election Day.

Two other statewide races were so close that they required hand recounts, such as in the Commissioner of Agriculture race, where Democrat Nikki Fried defeated Republican Matt Caldwell by 6,753 votes out of more than 8 million cast.

DeSantis referenced that contest on Wednesday and implied that there was some controversy with that result.

“We had an agriculture commission candidate that was winning by like 30- or 40,000 votes, and then after this vote dump, ended up losing by a few thousand votes and we actually had a Democrat in ’18 win — quote  win — as a result of that.”

Fried, who has chaired the Florida Democratic Party since 2023, fired back angrily.

“What a small and pathetic man,” she wrote on X. “Needs to spread lies to make himself feel better. Those stickers on the gas pumps must have really triggered him. I might feel bad for him if he wasn’t such a diabolical a**hole.”

She referred to certification stickers bearing Fried’s photo her department posted on gas pumps early in her term. The department regulates the devices.

The governor’s signing of the legislation comes a day after President Trump issued an executive order intended to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and restrict mail-in voting.

–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix