TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – In response to the Florida Legislature advancing Senate Bill 1334 and House Bill 991 through two committees this week, League of Women Voters of Florida President Jessica Lowe-Minor issued the following statement.
“The League of Women Voters of Florida believes that Floridians deserve an elections process that is fair, secure and transparent, allowing everyone to have confidence in the validity of the results.
“However, Senate Bill 1334 and House Bill 991 in their current forms do not support that mission. Both bills assume voters have easy access to original and/or certified citizenship documents, but only half of Americans have a passport and a majority of married women are unlikely to have a birth certificate in their current legal name.
“Research conducted in 2023 by the Brennan Center for Justice indicates that more than 9 percent of American citizens of voting age don’t have their proof of citizenship readily available. 9 percent of Florida’s Citizen Voting Age Population is approximately 1.6 million people.
“Requiring that eligible U.S. citizens have to jump through bureaucratic red tape to request, pay for, and then wait for, various types of government documentation in order to be able to vote is unfair and unnecessary. We believe that concerns about election integrity and security can be addressed through other methods that would not harm legitimate voters.”
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CONTACT
Joey Arellano