THE VILLAGES, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 991 on Wednesday at a news conference in The Villages, adding new election integrity measures to state law.
Speaking at the Eisenhower Recreation Center, the governor was joined by Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, and Secretary of State Cord Byrd.
Recommended Videos
The bill requires verification of U.S. citizenship during voter registration, mandates paper ballots for all elections and requires congressional candidates to disclose stock trading activity while in office.
That includes requiring additional proof of a person’s legal name to prove citizenship if the name on the voter registration application is different from the one on the legal document. For instance, married women would have to provide a marriage certificate in addition to their birth certificate to register to vote.
The law also removes the ability to use student identification cards, retirement center identification cards, neighborhood association identification cards, or public assistance identification cards as valid forms of voter identification at election polling precincts.
Two lawsuits have already been filed against the law in federal court.
The first one, by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Common Cause, Florida Rising, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Hispanic Federation, and UnidosUS says the law violates the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by creating unnecessary barriers to voting.
The second lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Florida State Conference of Branches and Youth Unites of the NAACP, and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, and also contends the law violates the First and 14th Amendment.
DeSantis said the state’s election system has improved significantly since Florida’s contested 2000 presidential recount.
“We’ve become the envy of the nation. Who would have thought that 25 years ago?" said DeSantis.
DeSantis said Florida has previously banned ballot harvesting, unsupervised drop boxes, mass mail-in ballots, and private nonprofit funding of election administration.
The new law’s major provisions, particularly regarding citizenship verification, will take effect Jan. 1, which will not impact the upcoming November election.