The Failed Florida Election Bill That Angered Voting Rights And Voting Integrity Advocates Alike

by Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

An election bill requiring new Florida voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship failed to advance in the just-concluded regular legislative session, drawing sighs of relief from both voting-rights and voting-integrity groups, although for different reasons.

The measure arose shortly after President Trump issued his executive order requiring voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. “This bill fully answers the president’s call,” said Lee County Republican Persons-Mulicka when introducing her proposal (HB 1381) before the House Government Operations Subcommittee on April 1.

The bill would have mandated that all voter registration applications, including any with a change in name, address, or party affiliation, could only be accepted after the Florida Department of State verified that the applicant was a U.S. citizen in one of three ways:

• The applicant’s voter record indicated that his or her legal status as a U.S. citizen had been verified.
• The applicant’s legal status as a citizen was matched against records of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles or U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
• Or the voter showing one of seven identification sources, such as a driver license, a U.S. passport. or a birth certificate.

Critics noted that the provision removed several previous categories to verify voter identification, such as a debit or credit card, student identification, or retirement cards.

“It’s not just an issue for noncitizens,” said Brad Ashwell, Florida state director for All Voting is Local Action.

“If the bill had passed, after Oct. 1 any of us who are renewing IDs due to an address change, a party change, a name change, would all have to show proof of citizenship. And it had a list of IDs to do that are pretty cumbersome and that a lot of people don’t have — like a passport or an original copy of a birth certificate.”

The bill resembled the federal Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month with four Democrats joining all Republicans in supporting it, Ashwell said.

One of the talking points that critics formed in that debate was how the bill would potentially disenfranchise married women who changed their last names. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men lack a birth certificate that matches their current name, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive group.

What about passports? In Florida, approximately 40% of the voting population, or around 8.1 million citizens in the state, lack passports, also according to statistics provided by the Center for American Progress.

Read the details

Voting integrity activists also had major problems with the bill.

“There were multiple things in there that appeared good at first glance but, when you read the details, weren’t good at all,” said Deb Monks of the group Defend Florida, which held town hall meetings throughout the state discussing the bill. “I call it window dressing. Some were positive, but if you really looked in it, it didn’t accomplish what we needed.”

Monks said her organization had more involvement with bills filed in the House by House Republicans Berny Jacques (HB 831) and Webster Barnaby (HB 1203) plus several by Miami Sen. Ileana Garcia (SB 1330, SB 390, SB 394 and SB 396). “Those fully addressed the citizenship issues as well as cleaning up the voting rolls,” Monks said.

None of them received a hearing.

The citizenship bill also called for replacing the existing ballot machine recount and audit process with an automated, independent pre-certification vote validation process for every vote cast in every election — the first state in the country to do so, Persons-Mulicka boasted.

The likely software that supervisors of elections would need to accommodate that change would be ClearAudit, which creates an image of every paper ballot and lets election officials quickly call up ballots with questionable markings to verify votes.

However, not every county in the state uses the ClearAudit technology, which is produced the company ClearBallot. That was a problem mentioned by both voting rights and voting integrity advocates.

“My issue with that is economic — the only way that they’re going to be able to comply with that law is if they get software that allows them to audit every precinct for every vote before the certification deadline,” said Ashwell.

“So, if they can’t do that, it’s going to delay the certification deadline and that’s a huge problem. If they do get the software to do that, it wouldn’t be a problem, but that costs money, and my understanding is that only about 2/3rds of the counties have that software at this point.”

“The way that we feel, we don’t need another machine,” added Cathi Chamberlain of the voter integrity group Pinellas Watchdogs.

“We want to get rid of the machines, so we’re really strong on that. We saw what VR [Systems] did in the last election, so these systems are not really reliable. We don’t trust them at all. Clear Ballot is extremely expensive, especially for your smaller districts that can’t afford that, not just the machines, but the upkeep as well.”

A glitch in VR Systems’ machines delayed results in the August primaries last year.

A spokesperson for the Florida Department of State told the Phoenix that the agency was looking into how many counties use ClearAudit, but did not provide those numbers before this story was published.

Not all conservatives were critical of the measure.

“Section 6 [of the bill] authorizes data sharing with other states to purge deceased or ineligible voters, and Section 8 leverages federal jury data to flag ineligible voters,” said Karen Jaroch of Heritage Action. “That’s smart, practical reforms to protect every lawful vote.”

Voting integrity advocates

Meanwhile, election-related bills sponsored by Democrats and voting rights advocates predictably went nowhere, with none of them getting a hearing.

Those advocates’ favorite bill encompassing an assortment of provisions was packed into the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Florida Voting Rights Act (SB 1582/HB 1409) originally sponsored in the Senate by Democrat Geraldine Thompson, who died just weeks before the session began (Jacksonville’s Tracie Davis later become the Senate sponsor).

The 113-page omnibus measure proposed a variety of changes, including establishing Election Day as a holiday and authorizing same-day voter registration. It would have required counties with histories of voter suppression to get pre-clearance before making voting changes (a provision of the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013).

It also would have repealed recent laws on vote-by-mail and created a database for felons to determine whether they have had their voting rights restored.

Realizing the bill would never get a hearing on its own, Orange County Democratic Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis opted to insert the entire measure onto Persons-Mulicka’s bill as an amendment when it came before its sole committee hearing last month. It was voted down by the GOP-dominated committee.

Both sides say they expect a version of this bill to be resurrected next year. While Persons-Mulicka was unsuccessful in moving this measure, she was also the sponsor of one of Gov. DeSantis highest priorities this year. That would be HB 1205, a proposal designed to reduce fraud in the signature petition process with citizen-led constitutional amendments, a bill that critics say will make it much harder to get such measures on the ballot.

Florida voters have already shown that they want only U.S. citizens to vote in state elections. A 2020 constitutional amendment calling for that was approved by more than 79% of the electorate.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.