TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers are planning to delay new voter citizenship verification requirements until next year, avoiding potential chaos for thousands of voters ahead of the midterms.
Senators on Wednesday agreed with their House counterparts to require voters to prove their citizenship and list that status on driver’s licenses starting on Jan. 1, 2027.
The legislation — if approved by the House and Senate this week — could make Florida the latest state to adopt citizenship requirements modeled on Congress’ Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, pushed by President Donald Trump. That legislation has stalled in the U.S. Senate.
The bill lawmakers are considering would not affect the vast majority of voters, who are already required to be citizens.
The bill would require new voters, or current ones who change their address or party affiliation, to prove their citizenship by presenting a passport, birth certificate or equivalent documents.
If voters already have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or ID, they would not have to show anything — the state already has that information on file. Proof of citizenship is required to get one.
But about 872,000 Floridians do not have a Real ID, said Sen. Erin Grall, a Vero Beach Republican who is sponsoring the legislation.
And an untold number of voters can’t easily get one. One House lawmaker said last month that her aunt, for example, was never issued a birth certificate and has struggled for months to get one.
People whose legal names are different from the ones they used to prove their citizenship — such as women whose last name is different from the one on the birth certificate they presented — would also have to provide documentation proving the name change.
Grall originally wanted to impose the requirements beginning July 1. But she told senators Wednesday that she supported pushing them back to next year to avoid disruption during this fall’s midterm elections.
“This gives adequate time in order for that population who does not yet have a Real ID to come into compliance, or to in some other way prove their citizenship,” Grall told senators Wednesday.
The Senate plan would make several other changes to the state’s election laws.
It would create an expedited hearing process for candidates to challenge the eligibility of their opponents, adopting portions of a bill that has already passed the Legislature this session.
Those could include challenges over whether a candidate has been a member of the party for 365 days prior to qualifying, or whether the candidate has met the state’s residency requirements.
Future driver’s licenses and state-issued IDs would also be required to state the person’s citizenship status.
Candidates for federal office would also have to state in writing whether they plan to trade stocks — a reaction to allegations of members of Congress using inside information to profit from their positions.
And college student and retirement center IDs would no longer be allowed to be used to verify a voter’s identity at polling places.
Democrats on Wednesday tried unsuccessfully to delete that provision, arguing that many retirees and college students might not have a driver’s license or state ID.
“This is what disenfranchisement is,” said Sen. Tina Polsky, a Boca Raton Democrat.
Grall acknowledged that some Floridians who are already registered to vote would have to produce more documents to stay on the rolls.
“I think that anything that we can do to establish greater trust and integrity in our systems, we should do,” Grall said.
