Florida and Mississippi governors sign proof-of-citizenship voting bills | Florida

The governors of Florida and Mississippi signed legislation Wednesday that requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and begins a process that will eventually expunge the records of voters who fail to provide proof of citizenship.

Four states passed proof-of-citizenship laws for voting this year. south dakota And of Utah The governors each signed evidence that would sign citizenship bills into law in March.

The changes come as the Save America Act, Donald Trump’s signature restrictive voting bill, languishes in the US Senate with little chance of passage. The president has had to weigh his options on how to move forward with the law’s provisions, including documented proof of citizenship requirements to register and strict photo ID requirements to vote.

The most likely way forward would be to continue encouraging conservative states to impose the same voting restrictions.

Florida law requires the Florida Department of State to identify registered voters who are not citizens and therefore ineligible to vote and to check their records against state and federal records to determine citizenship. The registrar will potentially contact the voter and ask them to provide documentation, and if they fail to do so, their record will be expunged.

The law also adds U.S. passport cards to the list of acceptable voter ID types, while removing retirement center IDs, public assistance IDs, neighborhood association IDs, and debit and credit cards from acceptable IDs. The changes will come into force on January 1, 2027.

But some state laws will go into effect sooner. South Dakota’s proof of citizenship legislation has moved quickly to take effect before the November midterms.

Last week, while Republican senators were futilely debating voting legislation in Washington, D.C., Mississippi lawmakers sent the Shield Act to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to sign. The legislation requires voter registration applications to be compared against the Department of Public Safety’s driver’s license and identification information and then against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to determine whether the applicant is a citizen.

The Mississippi law similarly requires documented proof of citizenship to register to vote and creates a process to purge voter records.

“As states like California and New York fill their voter rolls with illegal aliens, Mississippi will do the opposite and defend the right of Americans to determine the outcome of elections,” Reeves said in a post on X on Wednesday.

“This shouldn’t be a controversial issue, but it is. It’s because Democrats are desperately trying to appease their growing radical base and hand over the running of our country to those who shouldn’t be here.”

Use of the USCIS database is a subheading provision of the Save America Act.

Louisiana’s legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote went into effect in 2025 but faces an ongoing court challenge. New Hampshire removed a provision in its voter registration law that allowed registrants to certify their citizenship and instead required documentation. This law, adopted last year, is also in court; two week trial concluded last month.

Oklahoma became the latest state to introduce a measure improving voter ID requirements; Lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that would require proof of identity for all voting methods. It passed out of committee. A bill requiring the Kansas secretary of state to use the federal Save database twice a year to check on noncitizen voters has passed both houses and is in a legislative conference committee.

Voting rights advocates predict that state legislation, as well as executive orders from the president, will seek to dictate how states administer elections. The terms of the draft resolution are allegedly being circulated among right-wing election activists, but have not yet been made public.

Trump issued an executive order Tuesday evening to create lists of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and require the U.S. Postal Service to refrain from sending mail ballots to people not on that list. The decision was immediately condemned as being clearly unconstitutional and threatening swift legal action.

Trump’s other orders could also come close to the terms of the Save America Act, which would face an immediate challenge in federal court. The U.S. constitution distributes the power to conduct elections to the states and allows Congress to make some regulations, but it does not give the executive branch any role in election practices.

A number of activists have issued proposals that go much further to restrict state control over voting and impose requirements; But there is little evidence that proposals such as banning mail-in voting altogether or requiring every voter to re-register this year would be considered by the White House.

The FBI and U.S. national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard are conducting parallel investigations into foreign interference in the U.S. election, according to public statements and court documents. Trump could use the results of those investigations as the basis for a new executive order that would rely on different legal authority and would require opponents to present new arguments to overcome it in court.

However, Gabbard’s office annual threat assessment It was introduced to Congress earlier this month, and for the first time in a decade there was no mention of foreign interference in the election. “The intelligence community has been and continues to be focused on any data collection and intelligence that indicates a potential foreign threat,” Gabbard said in response to questions before the Senate last week. he said.