Sunshine Sentinel

Legislation is awaiting action in the U.S. Senate that would make sweeping changes to the nation’s elections laws and would nullify Florida’s newly enacted voter integrity provisions, including one that strengthens voter ID requirements.

The legislation, H.R.1 approved by the House in March and its Senate cousin, S.1, would circumvent state voting laws, including Florida’s requirement that voters show some form of identification at the polls. It would also override a provision in election reform legislation, SB 90, signed in May by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, that requires voter ID for mail ballots. Voters would instead be allowed to sign an affidavit attesting to their identity.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said of H.R.1, the so-called For the Peoples Act, that the “Democrats did not write the Corrupt Politicians Act to strengthen our elections system or to restore trust in our democracy. They wrote it to expand voter fraud and try to ensure that they’ll never lose again. We have to fight every step of the way to stop the Corrupt Politicians Act. We have to stand for free and fair elections and the rule of law, and not hand the future of our republic and our elections to the radical left.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Thirty-six states require some form of voter identification, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Nearly all foreign democratic countries do as well.

“Almost all industrialized democracies — and most that are not — require voters to prove their identity before voting,” wrote John Fund for National Review.

The federal law, moreover, would strip the states of their constitutionally derived authority to set voting procedures within their own borders.

A cross section of voters overwhelmingly agrees with voter ID requirements, polls show.

According to the Honest Elections Project, 85% of registered voters agreed that it is “common sense” to mandate the showing of voter IDs.

And a March 2021 survey by pollster Rasmussen Reports found that 75% of likely U.S. voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% opposed the requirement. That's up from 67% in favor, per an October 2018 Rasmussen poll.