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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a citizenship-verification requirement for voting that goes into effect Jan. 1, and civil rights organizations challenged it in federal court soon after it was approved. The measure directs election officials to verify voters’ citizenship through a process that involves cross-referencing voter registration applications with motor vehicle records, according to the Associated Press report.
Under the Florida law, voters can be required to produce proof of citizenship—such as a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization certificate—if their eligibility is challenged by government officials. The AP report said the law also restricts what voters may use as identification at the polls, including ending the use of credit cards, student IDs and retirement community identifications as voting IDs, and it requires that a driver’s citizenship status appear on driver’s licenses beginning in July 2027.
DeSantis defended the change as an election-integrity measure, saying the law improves “security and transparency” in Florida’s election system and that “In Florida, we will always stand up for election integrity,” according to the AP report. The law’s citizenship provision drew immediate pushback from civil rights groups that filed a lawsuit in federal court in South Florida.
The civil rights groups argued in the lawsuit that the documentation requirement would make it harder for eligible Floridians to vote, the AP report said. They pointed to reasons some voters may not have the required documents, including being born without a birth certificate, having documents destroyed in a hurricane, or not being able to afford the hundreds of dollars needed to replace them, and they warned that the process could burden participation even when a voter is eligible.
Mississippi, meanwhile, signed a separate citizenship-check law that takes effect July 1, expanding the circumstances under which officials must conduct additional checks. The AP report said Mississippi’s law requires local officials registering voters to run extra citizenship checks if applicants do not have or cannot provide driver’s license numbers on their voter application.
The Mississippi measure also requires the state’s secretary of state to conduct annual comparisons of voter rolls against an online database from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the goal of flagging potential noncitizens who could then be asked to provide proof of eligibility. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the law was a “win for election integrity,” adding that the state would continue efforts with the goal of making it “infinitely harder” and “impossible” to cheat in elections, per an AP summary of Reeves’ remarks.
The AP report said the Southern Poverty Law Center has argued the Mississippi law could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who do not have a passport, lack a birth certificate, or whose names do not match what appears on their birth certificates because of marriage name changes. The AP report also described the issue as part of a wider Republican push for proof-of-citizenship requirements beyond Florida and Mississippi.
Four Republican-led states—Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah—have enacted similar laws this year, the AP report said. In Michigan, supporters of voter citizenship documentation have submitted 750,000 petition signatures to seek a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
The AP report also linked the state actions to a broader national effort by Republicans, including legislation pushed by President Donald Trump that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The AP report said the proposal passed the House but stalled in the Senate before lawmakers took a spring recess, while the Kansas Legislature passed related legislation that still must be decided by Gov. Laura Kelly—who has regularly vetoed past GOP election bills and has not said publicly what she will do next.