FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed significant new voting restrictions into law, asserting that Florida elections are the best-run in the country while at the same time claiming there are significant threats to election integrity.

The biggest change is requiring verification of citizenship of registered voters, which is a key demand of President Donald Trump, who repeatedly has made unsubstantiated claims that hordes of non-citizens are voting in U.S. elections.

The new law also reduces the kinds of identification people can show at the polls to prove who they are. Student IDs and retirement-center IDs will no longer be allowed.

Voting-rights advocates warned those two provisions — among a long list of changes in state election law — could prevent thousands of citizens who are legitimate Florida voters from casting ballots.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new law on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Common Cause and other organizations. They want a court to block the citizenship requirement.

The governor said the state’s voters “should be comforted in the fact that Florida is yet again ahead of the curve.”

DeSantis said the law would be “effective in the not too distant future.” But even though Trump wants citizenship verification implemented before this year’s midterm elections, that part of the law DeSantis signed doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1.

Lawmakers delayed the effective date shortly before final passage of the legislation after voting-rights advocates warned it could produce chaos — and negative publicity for backers of the new law — if it took effect before the August primaries and November general election.

DeSantis, who signed the law in the Republican stronghold of The Villages in Central Florida, was joined by several other Republicans who touted its provisions, warned about potential threats to election integrity, and offered fulsome praise of the governor.

House Bill 991, now law, is the latest in a series of election law changes implemented in Florida since DeSantis became governor. He said they are attempts to strive toward even better run elections. Voting-rights advocates said they have made it more difficult for some people, especially constituencies that lean Democratic, to vote.

Citizenship

Verifying citizenship has become an animating issue for the Republican Party’s base since Trump began asserting that non-citizens voting is tainting elections.

Florida’s response is requiring verification of citizenship for all current and future registered voters, and people who change their addresses or party affiliation.

If the system works as sponsors say it will, and the voter registration database is successfully crossmatched with the state driver’s license database, most people likely won’t be aware they’ve been checked and verified. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has been verifying citizenship as part of bringing state drivers into compliance with federal REAL ID requirements.

For many others it could be far more problematic, voting advocates warned.

When someone registers to vote, they’ll have to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. That could prove difficult for people who don’t have those documents — and voting advocates say — even more so for women who have changed their names after marriage or divorce.

Supporters of the law said the threat of noncitizens voting is a major problem. Opponents said there isn’t any evidence of more than a handful of noncitizens voting or other voter fraud in Florida elections.

Pressed on the issue during debate in the Senate, state Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, cited two criminal prosecutions of non-citizen voting — but said that supported her view of the need for change, not the opponents’ view that there isn’t a major problem.

During the House debate, that chamber’s sponsor, state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers cited a state report about 2025 election investigations that referred to 198 “likely noncitizens who illegally registered and/or voted in Florida.” That works out to less than 1 possible noncitizen for every 70,000 registered voters.

Voting-rights advocates said many thousands of people could be disenfranchised by what they labeled as the “Show Your Papers” law, because they don’t have access to the kinds of documents needed to prove their citizenship, don’t have the ability to navigate the bureaucracy, or don’t have the money to get copies of required documents.

They said the law requiring voters to prove citizenship would disenfranchise eligible voters and violates the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

The groups challenging the law pointed to a similar law enacted in Kansas in 2016. More than 35,000 people were prevented from registering to vote before it was struck down by the courts.

Jessica Lowe-Minor, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, pointed to existing law, which requires voters to confirm they are citizens when registering. “The Governor signed a bill tying the right to vote to the possession of costly documents that many U.S. citizens don’t have easy access to. No eligible Floridian should be pushed out of the voter rolls simply because of red tape.”

Caren Short, the national league’s director of legal and research, said the law “is based on xenophobic lies and disinformation. The Legislature’s failure to look out for constituents instead of legislators’ own political interests will harm married women, naturalized citizens, young people, and many other eligible voters who do not have ready access to documents like passports or birth certificates.”

DeSantis downplayed the legal challenge. He said he expected it and predicted the state would prevail.

Identification

The law scales back the IDs voters can present at the polls.

The issue has nothing to do with the national debate over requiring voters to identify themselves, which Florida has long required. For years the state has accepted a range of identification.

Under the new law, student IDs and retirement center IDs will no longer be valid after 2026; driver’s licenses, state ID cards, military ID and licenses to carry concealed weapons would still be accepted as proof of voter identity.

Democrats and voting-rights advocates have said many college students don’t have driver’s licenses and many older residents of retirement communities also haven’t renewed their licenses because they no longer drive. As a result, they said, those groups could be prevented from casting ballots.

Other provisions

Stock trading: Candidates for federal office would have to disclose whether they plan to trade stocks while in office or if they had traded stocks in previous terms. DeSantis called that “one of my favorites,” among the provisions of the new law.

“The reality is it’s gotten to the point where it’s become a national farce what goes on,” DeSantis said. “It’s a really bad look when you see what happens with these members of Congress.

“A lot of folks up there, they view it as an opportunity to be pigs at the trough.”

Critics of the practice argue it shouldn’t be allowed because members of Congress sometimes have access to nonpublic information that may give them an advantage in buying and selling stocks. DeSantis said when he served in Congress, and since he’s become governor, he hasn’t traded stocks.

A prominent current example is Republican Markwayne Mullin, new secretary of homeland security, who was a prolific stock trader as a senator from Oklahoma before joining the Trump administration.

The New York Times, citing disclosure reports, said his assets were worth between $29 million and $97 million in 2024. When he was elected to the House in 2012, he valued his assets at a range of $2.8 million to $9 million in 2012. Lawmakers report in broad ranges, not specific amounts.

Dual citizenship: Any candidate for any elected office would have to disclose if they hold dual citizenship with another country.

“That’s important that you know that as a voter,” DeSantis said.

During legislative debate on the issue, state Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, D-Parkland, the daughter and wife of immigrants, said that provision suggests that someone with dual citizenship isn’t loyal to the U.S. Hunschofsky said it was “targeting” certain people.

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