‘This purposely manufactures a crisis for people who have done nothing wrong.’
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A third federal lawsuit is targeting Florida’s recently passed proof-of-citizenship voting law, and this one leans on a federal statute the first two didn’t invoke.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) announced the case a day after filing it in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on behalf of the Black Voters Matter Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
They argue HB 991, known broadly as the “Florida SAVE Act,” cannot coexist with the National Voter Registration Act. That law, which Congress passed in 1993, sets minimum standards states must follow when registering voters and maintaining voter rolls for federal elections.
Tianna Mays, Legal Director for the Democracy Defenders Fund, described HB 991 as “a political ploy to determine who wins our elections by picking who votes.”
“This scheme targets Black and Brown communities by erecting barriers to voting for hundreds of thousands of eligible voters, including naturalized citizens and other Floridians who don’t have a passport,” she said. “We will not let this assault on our democracy stand.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 991 on April 1, prompting immediate lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP.
Under the new law, starting Jan. 1, 2027, voter registrations and updates would have to be checked against state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles records. If those records don’t confirm citizenship, county Elections Supervisors would have to search other government files, then demand a passport, certified birth certificate or one of five other qualifying documents.
Registrants flagged as “potentially ineligible” would get 30 days to respond or face removal from the voter roll.
The SPLC and DDF’s 43-page complaint, filed Tuesday, argues those burdens of proof are ones the state created and then handed off.
“These requirements place the consequences of incomplete, outdated, or conflicting government records on eligible citizens,” the filing reads.
Florida today issues driver’s licenses to lawfully present noncitizens, so a driver who naturalizes afterward may still show up in state files under the old status — a mismatch, the complaint says, that falls hardest on naturalized voters.
The suit notes that replacing a naturalization certificate can cost up to $555 and takes about seven months on average, far longer than the 30-day window HB 991 provides for responses to a notice.
Further, the “burden of locating and replacing citizenship documents also carries a history that cannot be separated from race,” the complaint says, citing House floor testimony that Miami Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt delivered about how the law would disenfranchise her aunt, who was born in the South in the 1950s without a birth certificate.
The lawsuit names as defendants Secretary of State Cord Byrd and five county Supervisors: Mary Jane Arrington of Osceola, Karen Castor Dentel of Orange, Alina Garcia of Miami-Dade, Wendy Link of Palm Beach and Joe Scott of Broward.
SPLC Senior Staff Attorney Matletha Bennette pointed out that while HB 991 in March cleared the Legislature, where the GOP holds supermajorities in both chambers, a similar measure President Donald Trump pushed this year has stalled in Washington.
“Florida lawmakers are reviving a bill that couldn’t survive Congress and dressing it up as state law,” she said. “This purposely manufactures a crisis for people who have done nothing wrong, and it does so on the backs of naturalized citizens, Black families, and working Floridians.”
The two earlier challenges are still alive. The Florida NAACP and Florida Alliance for Retired Americans sued the day DeSantis signed HB 991 through the Elias Law Group, and their case moved from Tallahassee to South Florida in May.
The ACLU’s parallel action for UnidosUS, the League of Women Voters of Florida and others was filed in Miami the same morning.
Both cases rest on First and 14th Amendment claims, arguing HB 991 places an undue burden on the right to vote, and, in the NAACP’s complaint, that it sorts voters unequally based on which registration form they use.
Neither invokes the National Voting Registration Act.
In late July, the Republican National Committee and Florida GOP voluntarily joined the ACLU case as defendants.
“Florida’s SAVE Act is a commonsense law that helps ensure only eligible U.S. citizens are registering to vote,” Florida GOP Chair Evan Power said at the time.
“Floridians deserve confidence that every legal vote is counted and that our elections are protected from unlawful voting. The Florida GOP is proud to stand alongside the RNC in defending this law and will continue fighting to protect the integrity of our elections and the rights of every eligible voter.”
No Judge has ruled on the law’s validity.
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