DeSantis and Reeves sign voter citizenship law, sparking legal challenges

Voters in Florida and Mississippi will soon face new citizenship verification rules after governors signed those measures into law on Wednesday, triggering at least two lawsuits in the Sunshine State.

The measures signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves are aimed at protecting election integrity as similar legislation from President Donald Trump remains stalled in Congress.

Mississippi’s measure is expected to go into effect on July 1, and Florida’s law is expected to go into effect on January 1, 2027.

Under both laws, voters would be required to provide proof of citizenship, such as birth certificates, passports or naturalization certificates, if local officials challenge their eligibility after cross-referencing databases for voter registration applications. If individuals fail to provide the required proof of citizenship after being flagged, both states are required to remove them from voter registration lists.

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DeSantis said the Florida SAVE Act would increase the security and transparency of the state’s election system.

“Protecting the election process to improve oversight and prevent unlawful influence has been a top priority for my administration since my first days in office,” he said in a social media post. “This legislation strengthens the security, transparency and reliability of Florida’s election system.”

Lawsuits challenging the bill quickly followed; A civil rights group argued that some voters may not have the required documents and face difficulties obtaining them.

“Many eligible voters do not have these documents and cannot obtain them for a variety of reasons, including because they were born without a birth certificate in the South, their documents were destroyed in a hurricane, or they cannot afford the hundreds of dollars required to replace them,” says the lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters in federal court in South Florida.

Under the law, student IDs and retirement community IDs can no longer be used as voting IDs. New driver’s licenses will also need to reflect citizenship status from July 2027.

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Voters cast their votes in the midterm elections on November 8, 2022. (George Frey/Getty Images)

Separately, the Mississippi SHIELD Act does not require driver’s licenses to reflect citizenship.

However, if applicants do not provide a driver’s license number on their voter applications, local officials who register voters must conduct additional citizenship checks.

Mississippi officials are also required to conduct an annual statewide check against the federal database before federal elections to flag potential noncitizens.

“As states like California and New York fill their voter rolls with illegal aliens, Mississippi will do the opposite and defend Americans’ right to determine the outcome of elections,” Reeves said in a social media post. “We will continue to do everything we can to make it much harder to make it impossible to rig our elections!”

The civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center said the measure could disenfranchise Mississippi residents without proper paperwork, including women whose last names change after marriage.

Mississippi Governor Reeves (center) speaks during an event at the Capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, on January 18, 2024. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)

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The new laws follow similar measures signed by South Dakota and Utah in late March to strengthen proof of citizenship requirements for voters.

Meanwhile, Trump’s own voting legislation — the Republican-backed SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo ID for federal elections — was approved by the U.S. House but stalled in the Senate due to a lack of support to overcome the Democrat-led filibuster.