Sarasota Herald Tribune
February 16, 2026
Your Turn
Rhonda Peters and Vilia Johnson
Guest columnists
Protect Florida’s current effective voting system
The U.S. Congress again is entertaining passage of legislation to require, among other things, documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
Its most recent iteration, commonly known as the SAVE Act, specifies what documents are considered acceptable proof of citizenship.
When registering, an individual would have to show a U.S. passport, a certified birth certificate (not a copy), a naturalization or citizenship certificate, or consular report of birth abroad.
U.S. law already prohibits non-citizens from voting. Rather than improving election security, this bill makes it harder for eligible voters to exercise their right to vote.
We urge you to contact your elected officials to oppose the SAVE Act’s onerous and unnecessary legal requirements that will disenfranchise millions of Americans.
Alarmingly, similar legislation is rapidly making its way through the current Florida legislative session.
Companion bills in the House and Senate have passed two committee hearings with two more to go in each chamber before going to the floors for a full vote (SB 1334/HB 991).
Requiring U.S. citizens to produce documentation that is expensive and hard to get violates Floridians’ right to vote.
What the League of Women Voters of Sarasota finds most perplexing about this most recent spate of election bills is how it contradicts the high praise of Governor DeSantis and Secretary of State Byrd for the current state of Florida elections.
The Florida Department of State Office of Election Crimes & Security website states the following:
‘Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida's Secretary of State Cord Byrd and the Florida Legislature have made elections integrity a top priority by making significant investments to ensure Florida has the technology, infrastructure, and resources to conduct the nation’s most efficient and secure elections. Under the Governor’s leadership, Florida has become a model for successful elections administration.’
The proposed legislation assumes that voter fraud is a problem in Florida.
The Governor assured us that it is not.
This legislation also assumes that Florida’s voters have easy access to original and/or certified documents. Also, not true.
Many survivors of Florida’s recent hurricanes and floods are without government-issued documents.
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 and/or their legal name change documentation.
On a recent tour of the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) Operations Center, the Sarasota League saw firsthand the ‘technology, infrastructure and resources' that underlie “the nation’s most efficient and secure elections.’
In addition:
- All voting equipment is approved and certified by the Division of Elections and run through rigorous “testing and accuracy” checks prior to every election.
- All votes are cast using paper ballots that are handled and retained under lock and key according to chain of custody protocol.
- Poll workers are trained before every election on election law and voting procedure.
- Vote by mail ballots are secured by a coded two-envelope system for verifying voter eligibility and ballot secrecy.
- All meetings of the SOE Canvassing Board are open to the public and noticed on the SOE website.
To maintain Florida’s election integrity as the gold standard and to protect your right to vote, contact your Florida representatives to oppose SB 1334 and HB 991.