Latest news with #SafeguardAmericanVoterEligibility
Los Angeles Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
LA Times Today: Take it from California's election czar, the SAVE Act is a sham
For much of America's history, the right to vote was reserved for a select few. African Americans, women and other minorities were unable to cast ballots. Last month, the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility – or SAVE Act. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber wrote an opinion piece for the L.A. Times calling the bill 'Jim Crow 2.0.'
USA Today
21-05-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Here's why married women are concerned about the SAVE Act
Here's why married women are concerned about the SAVE Act Show Caption Hide Caption SAVE Act would make voting harder for spouses who changed names The SAVE Act aims to keep non-citizens from voting, but also could make it more difficult for married people to cast their vote. The GOP-led House of Representatives has passed a voting bill that opponents have said could disenfranchise millions of voters, including tens of millions of married women. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, first introduced last year by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is presented by Republican proponents as necessary legislation to safeguard elections and prevent noncitizens from voting, which is already illegal and exceedingly rare. It passed the Republican House in 2024 but was never taken up for a vote in the closely divided Senate. Roy reintroduced the bill in January and, though it passed the House on April 10, it will again face an uphill battle in the Senate, where seven Democrats would also need to support the measure. Supporters of the bill call it a security measure, but voting advocates have argued it would make it significantly more difficult for tens of millions of eligible Americans to register and carry out their constitutional right to vote. There has been specific buzz around how it could affect about 83% of women who change their last name when they marry. Here's what to know about the SAVE Act and how it could affect American voters. What is the SAVE Act? The SAVE Act would require that anyone registering to vote or changing their registration appear in person at an election office with original or certified documents proving not only identity but also citizenship status. For most Americans, that would mean showing a passport or birth certificate. That also means the most popular form of photo ID, a state-issued driver's license, would no longer be adequate on its own. Driver's licenses, military IDs and tribal identification documents would need to be accompanied by a birth certificate or record of naturalization that matches the name on them to be valid. Here's how it would affect American voters Registering to vote or updating your voter registration information could become much more difficult for tens of millions of Americans under the SAVE Act. Most people have to update their voter registration multiple times throughout their lives. Moving into a new home or apartment, changing party affiliation or updating a name, for example, all would now require that Americans go in-person to an election office with original or certified documentation of identity and citizenship status to make any changes or register at all. This bill could end voter registration drives, severely limit or eliminate online voter registration (used by 8 million Americans in the 2022 election cycle), limit or end automatic voter registration and eliminate the ability to send in a voter registration application by mail (used by 3 million people in 2022). People in rural areas, and those with disabilities or without reliable access to transportation, would find it more difficult to appear in person at an election office. These challenges are compounded by the fact that more than 21 million American citizens do not have their passports or birth certificates readily available, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. These voter security laws are already in place Proponents of the bill, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, have argued it is necessary for election integrity, despite data indicating the alleged illegal voting at the heart of the bill is rare. "Democrats say it's already illegal to vote as a (non-)citizen, but that doesn't mean that you don't need further enforcement," Johnson told reporters. "We don't rely on the integrity of teenagers trying to purchase a six-pack at the liquor store, right? We require them to provide ID to prove they're old enough to make that purchase." Opponents say it is nothing short of voter suppression. 'It's just an undue burden for nothing because there isn't a problem with noncitizens voting,'' Helen Butler, executive director of the nonpartisan Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, told USA TODAY. 'I think it's all in trying to turn back the clock just so that people aren't able to vote when they're eligible to vote." Ample laws are already in place to prevent unqualified people from casting their votes, advocates say. Such measures include a requirement for election officials to verify eligibility and citizenship data via the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, death data, and U.S. Postal Service change-of-address data, as reported by the Center for American Progress. Federal law also requires that anyone registering to vote provide either their government-issued driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number to establish voting eligibility. Married women are concerned about the SAVE Act The SAVE Act requires that the name on your valid passport or photo ID matches the name on your birth certificate or naturalization card. However, it does not include proof of name change or a marriage certificate as acceptable documents to prove identity, meaning the roughly 69 million American women who take their partner's last name after marriage would not have a birth certificate that reflects their current, legal name. This concern is compounded by the fact that about half of U.S. citizens, or 146 million Americans, do not have a valid passport, according to State Department data. Comparing that number to the 153 million Americans who voted in the 2024 presidential election gives some scope to just how many citizens could have their voting access disrupted. If a voter changed their name after marriage and did not have a current passport, for example, they could be prevented from practicing their constitutional right to vote. The bill does include a provision ordering states to allow registrants to provide 'additional documentation' to prove their citizenship when discrepancies arise, but it does not specify what types of documents states could accept. Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States, told USA TODAY she was concerned states wouldn't be able to work out which additional documents they would accept until after elections this year and potentially, next year. The bill's ambiguous language is a concern to voting rights advocates, she said, especially because a provision within it would subject election workers to possible jail time if they accidentally registered a voter who fails to present the outlined documentation of citizenship. Roy rejected accusations that the bill could hinder married women, calling it 'absurd armchair speculation.' He said in a statement that the legislation provided 'myriad ways for people to prove citizenship and explicitly directs States to establish a process for individuals to register to vote if there are discrepancies.' His office has not responded to questions about whether Republicans planned to amend the bill.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The SAVE Act Could Threaten Voting Access—And Repeat History
People participate in a protest in front of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Presidents' Day, Feb. 17, 2025. Credit - Dominic Gwinn—Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images On April 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on a largely party-line vote. Republicans hailed the bill as a way to safeguard American elections from undocumented migrants voting. Critics, by contrast, warn it could make voting more difficult—if not impossible—for legally eligible voters. That's especially true for tens of millions of married women, who may not be able to provide the required documentation to prove their citizenship to register to vote. Presenting a birth certificate remains the easiest way to do so under the Act. However, many married women take their husband's surnames and therefore don't have birth certificates that match their current legal names. If the Senate passes the SAVE Act and President Donald Trump signs it into law, it will mean that millions of American women could find themselves in the shoes of Ethel Mackenzie, an early 20th century suffragist. Like McKenzie, they might see their ability to register and vote inhibited due to a congressional effort to prevent non-citizens from voting. When Mackenzie tried to register to vote after California adopted woman suffrage in 1911, she was shocked to find out she couldn't—despite being born in the Golden State. The culprit: the 1907 Expatriation Act, a federal law that stripped American women of their citizenship when they married non-citizens. Mackenzie's case exposed how nativist policies could harm not just immigrants, but also the rights of American women. Now, the Save Act threatens to do the same. In 1855, Congress passed the Naturalization Act. The law made any immigrant woman who married a citizen man into a citizen herself, as long as she met the racial requirements for citizenship. In 1868, the 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship for all people born in the U.S., except for American Indians and the children of foreign diplomats. Surprise over Trump's Gains With Latinos and Asian Americans Stems From a Flawed Assumption In the last three decades of the 19th century, however, nativist sentiment surged. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. In 1892, Congress extended and expanded the ban in the Geary Act. And in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated the Gentleman's Agreement with Japan restricting Japanese immigration to the U.S. That same year, the State Department pressured Congress to pass the Expatriation Act. Officials argued that marriages between citizens and non-citizens were handled differently by different nations and without a uniform rule in the U.S., the department couldn't determine who was entitled to an American passport and protection while outside of the country. Advocates for women's suffrage thought the bill wasn't a good idea and expected the courts to find it unconstitutional. They believed it was was wildly out of step with the ongoing erosion of coverture, a set of legal practices that the State Department had specifically used to justify their recommendation to Congress. Coverture derived from English common law and dictated that women suffered "civil death" upon marriage. They ceased to have a legal identity, and instead became covered by their husband's legal identity. This left them unable to sign contracts or own property. Suffragists fought to curtail coverture. But they also pushed another agenda item—one that helped propel the passage of the Expatriation Act—disfranchising non-citizens. In the colonial era and the Early Republic, voting eligibility was often tied to property ownership and residency, rather than citizenship. As such, non-citizen voting was often legal and common. The practice surged again in the midwest in the 1830s, and was added to several state constitutions in the Deep South as a Reconstruction reform after the Civil War to counter the votes of unreconstructed white southerners. But in the nativist climate of the early 20th century, the practice had fallen out of favor, and suffragists and other progressives fought to end it. Some suffragists argued that immigrants opposed suffrage for women and prohibition, and therefore immigrant voting posed a threat to their agenda. Reflecting how the two concepts became intertwined, South Dakota, Texas, and Arkansas put amendments on their ballots to enfranchise women while simultaneously ending non-citizen voting. The amendments passed in South Dakota and Arkansas. As adoption of the Expatriation Act proved, the push to end non-citizen voting proved too powerful for suffragists to control. The new law made married women dependent citizens; their citizenship status was now entirely derived from that of their husbands. When McKenzie discovered that the new law prevented her from voting, she filed suit, arguing that Congress could not take away by law what the Constitution granted her by birthright. While suffragists expected the courts would overturn the Expatriation Act, the nativist sentiments of the day were stronger than the trend towards women's rights. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled against Mackenzie. As Ohio Representative John Cable summarized, the Court found that citizenship 'was not such a right, privilege, or immunity that it could not be taken away by an act of Congress.' The justices found that Mackenzie's decision to marry a non-citizen amounted to 'voluntary expatriation.' She was now stateless and unprotected in her own country. The decision left suffragists concerned that without married women' independent citizenship, suffrage would be an impossibility. Such fears proved wrong: in 1920 the ratification of the 19th Amendment prohibited states from barring women from voting on account of sex. Passage of the suffrage amendment encouraged Congress to revisit married women's independent citizenship, because it meant that immigrant women naturalized through marriage could vote, while American women denaturalized by marriage were disfranchised. The League of Women Voters, formed out of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, lobbied Congress for married women's independent citizenship. In 1922, they scored a partial victory when Congress passed the Cable Act, which ended automatic denaturalization for American women if their spouse was an immigrant racially eligible for citizenship. The law also provided a pathway for denaturalized women to reclaim their citizenship. But it still excluded women who married Asian immigrants. Some politicians used this period of denaturalization strategically to their own advantage. In 1928, Ruth Bryan Owen, daughter of William Jennings Bryan, became the first woman to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives from a former Confederate state. But upon her victory, her opponent sued arguing that her period of denaturalization after marrying a British serviceman during WWI meant that she hadn't been a citizen for the previous seven years—a constitutional requirement to serve. The challenge forced Owen, a native born citizen; daughter of a three-time presidential candidate, congressman, and Secretary of State; and a duly elected official from Florida to plead her case before Congress. Her fellow lawmakers chose to seat Owen, rejecting the challenge that threatened to undo the will of her constituents. Voter Suppression Grew Up From the Soil of Emancipation Itself During the 1920s, Congress amended the Cable Act several times. Then, in 1933 the Senate voted to adopt the convention of the Pan American Conference, which argued that differences in nationality laws based on sex should be eliminated. The next year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Equal Nationality Act, through which American women achieved full, independent citizenship. Sixty years later, a new round of concerns of undocumented migration prompted Congress to make it a crime for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Lawmakers did so even though it hadn't been legal for non-citizens to vote in either state or federal elections in any state since Arkansas's ban went into effect in 1926. Republicans allege that the SAVE Act will help enforce this existing law. But instead, it threatens to disenfranchise millions of married American women. The law stipulates that people can prove citizenship either by presenting a REAL ID or a military identification card, if they confirm a person's citizenship status. But many can not, which leaves people registering to vote with the option of presenting a state identification card or driver's license in conjunction with a certified birth certificate that includes the 'full name' of the applicant. It's this last provision which poses a problem for up to 69 million women who took their husband's name upon getting married. That means their birth certificates no longer include their full legal names. The law makes no allowances for such situations. It does leave room for states to decide which secondary documents to accept, but this would still be an additional burden on married women, could be applied unevenly across the country, and may open the door for challenges to election results—like the one faced by Ruth Bryan Owen—on the grounds that states didn't meet these onerous requirements. A century after the suffrage movement, the SAVE Act threatens to echo the harms of the Expatriation Act. While it's supporters claim it will target non-citizen voters, instead it could prevent American women from voting. Rachel Michelle Gunter is a public historian currently writing a book titled 'Suffragists, Soldiers, and Immigrants: Drastic Changes to Voting Rights in the Progressive Era.' Her series with the Great Courses, "Forgotten America: Rediscovering Events that Changed the Nation" premieres on May 9, 2025. She is on social media as @PhDRachel Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
Time Magazine
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
The SAVE Act Could Threaten Voting Access for Many Women—And Repeat History
O passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on a largely party-line vote. Republicans hailed the bill as a way to safeguard American elections from undocumented migrants voting. Critics, by contrast, warn it could make voting more difficult —if not impossible—for legally eligible voters. That's especially true for tens of millions of married women, who may not be able to provide the required documentation to prove their citizenship to register to vote. Presenting a birth certificate remains the easiest way to do so under the Act. However, many married women take their husband's surnames and therefore don't have birth certificates that match their current legal names. If the Senate passes the SAVE Act and President Donald Trump signs it into law, it will mean that millions of American women could find themselves in the shoes of Ethel Mackenzie, an early 20 th century suffragist. Like McKenzie, they might see their ability to register and vote inhibited due to a congressional effort to prevent non-citizens from voting. When Mackenzie tried to register to vote after California adopted woman suffrage in 1911, she was shocked to find out she couldn't—despite being born in the Golden State. The culprit: the 1907 Expatriation Act, a federal law that stripped American women of their citizenship when they married non-citizens. Mackenzie's case exposed how nativist policies could harm not just immigrants, but also the rights of American women. Now, the Save Act threatens to do the same. In 1855, Congress passed the Naturalization Act. The law made any immigrant woman who married a citizen man into a citizen herself, as long as she met the racial requirements for citizenship. In 1868, the 14 th Amendment established birthright citizenship for all people born in the U.S., except for American Indians and the children of foreign diplomats. Read More: Surprise over Trump's Gains With Latinos and Asian Americans Stems From a Flawed Assumption In the last three decades of the 19 th century, however, nativist sentiment surged. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. In 1892, Congress extended and expanded the ban in the Geary Act. And in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated the Gentleman's Agreement with Japan restricting Japanese immigration to the U.S. That same year, the State Department pressured Congress to pass the Expatriation Act. Officials argued that marriages between citizens and non-citizens were handled differently by different nations and without a uniform rule in the U.S., the department couldn't determine who was entitled to an American passport and protection while outside of the country. Advocates for women's suffrage thought the bill wasn't a good idea and expected the courts to find it unconstitutional. They believed it was was wildly out of step with the ongoing erosion of coverture, a set of legal practices that the State Department had specifically used to justify their recommendation to Congress. Coverture derived from English common law and dictated that women suffered "civil death" upon marriage. They ceased to have a legal identity, and instead became covered by their husband's legal identity. This left them unable to sign contracts or own property. Suffragists fought to curtail coverture. But they also pushed another agenda item—one that helped propel the passage of the Expatriation Act—disfranchising non-citizens. In the colonial era and the Early Republic, voting eligibility was often tied to property ownership and residency, rather than citizenship. As such, non-citizen voting was often legal and common. The practice surged again in the midwest in the 1830s, and was added to several state constitutions in the Deep South as a Reconstruction reform after the Civil War to counter the votes of unreconstructed white southerners. But in the nativist climate of the early 20 th century, the practice had fallen out of favor, and suffragists and other progressives fought to end it. Some suffragists argued that immigrants opposed suffrage for women and prohibition, and therefore immigrant voting posed a threat to their agenda. Reflecting how the two concepts became intertwined, South Dakota, Texas, and Arkansas put amendments on their ballots to enfranchise women while simultaneously ending non-citizen voting. The amendments passed in South Dakota and Arkansas. As adoption of the Expatriation Act proved, the push to end non-citizen voting proved too powerful for suffragists to control. The new law made married women dependent citizens; their citizenship status was now entirely derived from that of their husbands. When McKenzie discovered that the new law prevented her from voting, she filed suit, arguing that Congress could not take away by law what the Constitution granted her by birthright. While suffragists expected the courts would overturn the Expatriation Act, the nativist sentiments of the day were stronger than the trend towards women's rights. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled against Mackenzie. As Ohio Representative John Cable summarized, the Court found that citizenship 'was not such a right, privilege, or immunity that it could not be taken away by an act of Congress.' The justices found that Mackenzie's decision to marry a non-citizen amounted to 'voluntary expatriation.' She was now stateless and unprotected in her own country. The decision left suffragists concerned that without married women' independent citizenship, suffrage would be an impossibility. Such fears proved wrong: in 1920 the ratification of the 19 th Amendment prohibited states from barring women from voting on account of sex. Passage of the suffrage amendment encouraged Congress to revisit married women's independent citizenship, because it meant that immigrant women naturalized through marriage could vote, while American women denaturalized by marriage were disfranchised. The League of Women Voters, formed out of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, lobbied Congress for married women's independent citizenship. In 1922, they scored a partial victory when Congress passed the Cable Act, which ended automatic denaturalization for American women if their spouse was an immigrant racially eligible for citizenship. The law also provided a pathway for denaturalized women to reclaim their citizenship. But it still excluded women who married Asian immigrants. Some politicians used this period of denaturalization strategically to their own advantage. In 1928, Ruth Bryan Owen, daughter of William Jennings Bryan, became the first woman to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives from a former Confederate state. But upon her victory, her opponent sued arguing that her period of denaturalization after marrying a British serviceman during WWI meant that she hadn't been a citizen for the previous seven years—a constitutional requirement to serve. The challenge forced Owen, a native born citizen; daughter of a three-time presidential candidate, congressman, and Secretary of State; and a duly elected official from Florida to plead her case before Congress. Her fellow lawmakers chose to seat Owen, rejecting the challenge that threatened to undo the will of her constituents. During the 1920s, Congress amended the Cable Act several times. Then, in 1933 the Senate voted to adopt the convention of the Pan American Conference, which argued that differences in nationality laws based on sex should be eliminated. The next year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Equal Nationality Act, through which American women achieved full, independent citizenship. Sixty years later, a new round of concerns of undocumented migration prompted Congress to make it a crime for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Lawmakers did so even though it hadn't been legal for non-citizens to vote in either state or federal elections in any state since Arkansas's ban went into effect in 1926. Republicans allege that the SAVE Act will help enforce this existing law. But instead, it threatens to disenfranchise millions of married American women. The law stipulates that people can prove citizenship either by presenting a REAL ID or a military identification card, if they confirm a person's citizenship status. But many can not, which leaves people registering to vote with the option of presenting a state identification card or driver's license in conjunction with a certified birth certificate that includes the 'full name' of the applicant. It's this last provision which poses a problem for up to 69 million women who took their husband's name upon getting married. That means their birth certificates no longer include their full legal names. The law makes no allowances for such situations. It does leave room for states to decide which secondary documents to accept, but this would still be an additional burden on married women, could be applied unevenly across the country, and may open the door for challenges to election results—like the one faced by Ruth Bryan Owen—on the grounds that states didn't meet these onerous requirements. A century after the suffrage movement, the SAVE Act threatens to echo the harms of the Expatriation Act. While it's supporters claim it will target non-citizen voters, instead it could prevent American women from voting. Rachel Michelle Gunter is a public historian currently writing a book titled 'Suffragists, Soldiers, and Immigrants: Drastic Changes to Voting Rights in the Progressive Era.' Her series with the Great Courses, "Forgotten America: Rediscovering Events that Changed the Nation" premieres on May 9, 2025. She is on social media as @PhDRachel Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The failed Florida election bill that angered voting rights and voting integrity advocates alike
Former St. Lucie County Republican supervisor of elections candidate George Umansky addressing a crowd in Pinellas County on April 24, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix) An election bill requiring new Florida voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship failed to advance in the just-concluded regular legislative session, drawing sighs of relief from both voting-rights and voting-integrity groups, although for different reasons. The measure arose shortly after President Trump issued his executive order requiring voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. 'This bill fully answers the president's call,' said Lee County Republican Persons-Mulicka when introducing her proposal (HB 1381) before the House Government Operations Subcommittee on April 1. The bill would have mandated that all voter registration applications, including any with a change in name, address, or party affiliation, could only be accepted after the Florida Department of State verified that the applicant was a U.S. citizen in one of three ways: The applicant's voter record indicated that his or her legal status as a U.S. citizen had been verified. The applicant's legal status as a citizen was matched against records of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles or U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Or the voter showing one of seven identification sources, such as a driver license, a U.S. passport. or a birth certificate. Critics noted that the provision removed several previous categories to verify voter identification, such as a debit or credit card, student identification, or retirement cards. 'It's not just an issue for noncitizens,' said Brad Ashwell, Florida state director for All Voting is Local Action. 'If the bill had passed, after Oct. 1 any of us who are renewing IDs due to an address change, a party change, a name change, would all have to show proof of citizenship. And it had a list of IDs to do that are pretty cumbersome and that a lot of people don't have — like a passport or an original copy of a birth certificate.' The bill resembled the federal Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month with four Democrats joining all Republicans in supporting it, Ashwell said. One of the talking points that critics formed in that debate was how the bill would potentially disenfranchise married women who changed their last names. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men lack a birth certificate that matches their current name, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive group. What about passports? In Florida, approximately 40% of the voting population, or around 8.1 million citizens in the state, lack passports, also according to statistics provided by the Center for American Progress. Voting integrity activists also had major problems with the bill. 'There were multiple things in there that appeared good at first glance but, when you read the details, weren't good at all,' said Deb Monks of the group Defend Florida, which held town hall meetings throughout the state discussing the bill. 'I call it window dressing. Some were positive, but if you really looked in it, it didn't accomplish what we needed.' Monks said her organization had more involvement with bills filed in the House by House Republicans Berny Jacques (HB 831) and Webster Barnaby (HB 1203) plus several by Miami Sen. Ileana Garcia (SB 1330, SB 390, SB 394 and SB 396). 'Those fully addressed the citizenship issues as well as cleaning up the voting rolls,' Monks said. None of them received a hearing. The citizenship bill also called for replacing the existing ballot machine recount and audit process with an automated, independent pre-certification vote validation process for every vote cast in every election — the first state in the country to do so, Persons-Mulicka boasted. The likely software that supervisors of elections would need to accommodate that change would be ClearAudit, which creates an image of every paper ballot and lets election officials quickly call up ballots with questionable markings to verify votes. However, not every county in the state uses the ClearAudit technology, which is produced the company ClearBallot. That was a problem mentioned by both voting rights and voting integrity advocates. 'My issue with that is economic — the only way that they're going to be able to comply with that law is if they get software that allows them to audit every precinct for every vote before the certification deadline,' said Ashwell. 'So, if they can't do that, it's going to delay the certification deadline and that's a huge problem. If they do get the software to do that, it wouldn't be a problem, but that costs money, and my understanding is that only about 2/3rds of the counties have that software at this point.' 'The way that we feel, we don't need another machine,' added Cathi Chamberlain of the voter integrity group Pinellas Watchdogs. 'We want to get rid of the machines, so we're really strong on that. We saw what VR [Systems] did in the last election, so these systems are not really reliable. We don't trust them at all. Clear Ballot is extremely expensive, especially for your smaller districts that can't afford that, not just the machines, but the upkeep as well.' A glitch in VR Systems' machines delayed results in the August primaries last year. A spokesperson for the Florida Department of State told the Phoenix that the agency was looking into how many counties use ClearAudit, but did not provide those numbers before this story was published. Not all conservatives were critical of the measure. 'Section 6 [of the bill] authorizes data sharing with other states to purge deceased or ineligible voters, and Section 8 leverages federal jury data to flag ineligible voters,' said Karen Jaroch of Heritage Action. 'That's smart, practical reforms to protect every lawful vote.' Meanwhile, election-related bills sponsored by Democrats and voting rights advocates predictably went nowhere, with none of them getting a hearing. Those advocates' favorite bill encompassing an assortment of provisions was packed into the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Florida Voting Rights Act (SB 1582/HB 1409) originally sponsored in the Senate by Democrat Geraldine Thompson, who died just weeks before the session began (Jacksonville's Tracie Davis later become the Senate sponsor). The 113-page omnibus measure proposed a variety of changes, including establishing Election Day as a holiday and authorizing same-day voter registration. It would have required counties with histories of voter suppression to get pre-clearance before making voting changes (a provision of the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013). It also would have repealed recent laws on vote-by-mail and created a database for felons to determine whether they have had their voting rights restored. Realizing the bill would never get a hearing on its own, Orange County Democratic Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis opted to insert the entire measure onto Persons-Mulicka's bill as an amendment when it came before its sole committee hearing last month. It was voted down by the GOP-dominated committee. Both sides say they expect a version of this bill to be resurrected next year. While Persons-Mulicka was unsuccessful in moving this measure, she was also the sponsor of one of Gov. DeSantis highest priorities this year. That would be HB 1205, a proposal designed to reduce fraud in the signature petition process with citizen-led constitutional amendments, a bill that critics say will make it much harder to get such measures on the ballot. Florida voters have already shown that they want only U.S. citizens to vote in state elections. A 2020 constitutional amendment calling for that was approved by more than 79% of the electorate. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
