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voting rights
Florida Republicans Ripped for Advancing Show-Me-Your-Papers Voter ID Bill
"This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy," said the ACLU of Florida's executive director.
Feb 25, 2026
With 251 days until the US general election, Florida Republicans on Wednesday passed a show-me-your-papers bill that opponents warn could prevent thousands of eligible state voters from registering if they don't have a valid birth certificate or passport, or their documents don't reflect a name change.
"Midterm elections are coming later this year—and they're a crucial test of our democracy," ACLU of Florida executive director Bacardi Jackson said in a Wednesday statement. "Moments like this bring new voters into the process and give communities the power to hold leaders accountable—exactly what a healthy democracy demands. But right now, some lawmakers are pushing an anti-voter bill that could shut thousands of eligible people out of our elections and discourage the enrollment of new eligible voters."
The Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 83-31 on HB 991, sponsored by Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R-78).
"The Florida House version of the bill would only go into effect in January 2027. But under a similar bill set for consideration in the Florida Senate, the new rules would take effect this July, before the November midterm elections," Democracy Docket detailed. "A House committee already gave preliminary approval to the bill earlier this month."
Jackson highlighted that "many eligible voters don't have ready access to an unexpired passport or an original or certified copy of their birth certificate because of logistical and financial barriers. More than 8 million Floridians do not have a valid passport, and because many women legally change their name upon marriage, more than 4.7 million women in Florida do not have a birth certificate reflecting their current legal name—documents this bill would require."
"At the same time, this proposal would eliminate current, valid forms of ID proving eligibility at the polls, including student IDs, retirement center IDs, and public assistance IDs," she warned. "Taken together, these changes are not neutral or harmless—they would fall hardest on low-income voters, students, seniors, women, and Black and brown Floridians."
The ACLU leader also argued that "context matters. This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy." She specifically pointed to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act that the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives passed earlier this month.
"We're seeing parallel efforts nationally to make it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots—including the SAVE Act being debated in Congress right now—and Florida is leading the way down this authoritarian path," she said. The federal bill is less likely to get through the US Senate, whose filibuster rule requires the GOP to get some Democratic support to advance most legislation.
"What makes this even more galling is that lawmakers don't have to do any of this at all—they are choosing to," said Jackson. "They could enact reforms making it easier for eligible Floridians to vote and have their voices be heard, like the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Florida Voting Rights Act, HB 1419/SB 1598. Instead, they are fast-tracking legislation that would make voting harder for eligible Floridians and silence communities that deserve to be heard."
"We will not stand by while politicians in power seek to entrench their power at the expense of the people's rights," she vowed. "We will keep organizing and fighting to reclaim and defend our democracy—because every eligible Floridian deserves to vote."
Meanwhile, at the federal level, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to hold a vote on the SAVE America Act this week. President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to increase pressure on Congress to send the bill to his desk.
"I'm asking you to approve the SAVE America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections—that cheating is rampant in our elections," Trump said. "It's very simple: All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None."
Experts have long countered such GOP claims by emphasizing that, as the Brennan Center for Justice put it in a pair of blog posts, "noncitizen voting is already illegal" and "extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare."
Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel for the national voting rights group Fair Elections Center, told Democracy Docket on Wednesday that Florida's voter suppression bill "would do a lot of the same things," as the SAVE America Act, "in terms of preventing American citizens from voting who don't have access to documentary proof of citizenship documents."
"The last thing someone who is on a path to citizenship would want to do is to jeopardize their naturalization by voting illegally," Kanter Cohen said. "And so people don't do that. That's not something that's happening because it has such dire consequences."
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Graham Platner Warns 'Susan Collins Wants to Make It Harder to Vote’ With SAVE Act
"Under this terrible bill, if you get married and change your name, or if you can't find your passport—you could be turned away from the polls."
Feb 18, 2026
In her home state of Maine for the first time since officially announcing she is running for reelection in the November midterms, US Sen. Susan Collins has been explaining to local media outlets why she is supporting President Donald Trump's bill that would impose new restrictions on voter registration and could prevent tens of millions of Americans from casting ballots.
But Graham Platner, the progressive veteran and oyster farmer running in the Democratic primary, provided his own analysis of the Republican senator's planned vote.
"Susan Collins is never there to protect Mainers and she's never there to protect our democracy, but she is always there to help Donald Trump," said Platner in a video he posted to social media.
Susan Collins wants to make it harder to vote.
She just bailed out Trump and cosponsored the "SAVE Act.” Under this terrible bill, if you get married and change your name, or if you can't find your passport — you could be turned away from the polls. pic.twitter.com/QYrQLmQmsf
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) February 18, 2026
Collins announced her support for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) Act days after it was narrowly passed in the US House.
If signed into law, the SAVE Act would require Americans to provide proof of US citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, in person when they register to vote.
The proposal is part of the Trump administration's long-term effort to spread misinformation about noncitizens trying to vote in US elections—which is already illegal.
Collins on Monday suggested the SAVE Act would prevent fraud at the polls, telling News Center Maine that the bill "is important to ensure confidence in the results of our elections."
"There is no evidence that unauthorized immigrants, green-card holders, or immigrants on temporary visas are voting in significant numbers, despite some claims that 'millions' of noncitizens are voting in US elections," according to the Migration Policy Institute. "In fact, audits by election officials and numerous studies reflect that voter fraud by noncitizens is extremely rare."
Instead of stopping noncitizens from engaging in fraudulent voting, the Brennan Center for Justice warned last week, the SAVE Act is projected to stop an estimated 21 million citizens from casting ballots lawfully.
That's the number of Americans who don't have ready access to the documents they would need to register, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
"Half of all Americans don’t have a passport, for example, and millions of married women who have changed their names might need to jump through extra hoops to vote," said the group.
Collins insisted in an interview with ABC News affiliate WMTW that showing proof of citizenship one time when registering would not be "burdensome," and said she would not support the SAVE Act if it required showing a passport or birth certificate every time a person voted.
But Platner emphasized that "under this terrible bill, if you get married and change your name, or if you can't find your passport—you could be turned away from the polls."
"Susan Collins wants to make it harder to vote," he said.
Collins' own constituents overwhelmingly rejected a state proposal to require a photo ID to vote, with 64% of Mainers voting against the referendum in November.
Platner, who has been leading Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in numerous polls as well as in small-dollar fundraising in recent months ahead of the June 9 primary, pointed to Collins' history of portraying herself as an independent-minded moderate Republican while joining the president in supporting some of his most consequential political moves, such as the appointment of right-wing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"In classic Susan Collins fashion," said Platner, "she is yet again showing up for Donald Trump when he needs her most."
The SAVE Act has little chance of passing in the Senate, as it needs support from 60 senators to advance to a final vote. Collins was the 50th Republican to back the SAVE Act in the Senate.
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Arizona GOP Pushes 'Fascist' Bill Requiring ICE at the Polls on Election Day
It comes shortly after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went to Arizona and said her agency would "make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders."
Feb 18, 2026
As the Trump administration threatens to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement to menace voters on election day, Arizona Republicans are pushing for a bill that would require every county to allow federal agents at polling places to “observe election activities.”
The Arizona state Senate is expected to take up the proposal this week, which would require all 15 counties in the state to sign an agreement with ICE “to provide for a federal immigration law enforcement presence at each location within this state where ballots are cast or deposited.”
Following federal agents' killings of two American citizens in Minneapolis and a wave of violence and civil rights violations, including racial profiling, approval of ICE is at an all-time low among the American public, with more Americans now saying they want to abolish the agency than keep it around, according to polls.
Nearly half of all Arizona residents are nonwhite. Under this proposal, there will be virtually no way for them to vote without a federal immigration agent potentially watching.
The memo introducing the text to Senate Bill 1570 "requires such an agreement to provide for the presence of federal immigration law enforcement personnel during all hours in which voting is conducted, or ballots are deposited, including early voting locations, election day polling places, and ballot drop box locations."
It also "allows federal immigration law enforcement personnel to observe election activities and perform lawful duties within the scope of their federal authority."
As Jerod MacDonald-Evoy noted for the Arizona Mirror, monitoring elections is explicitly considered to be outside the "lawful duties" of ICE agents.
The proposal... seems to directly run afoul of federal law, which bars “any troops or armed men” who are part of “the civil, military, or naval service of the United States” from being deployed to polling locations. The only exception is if doing so is needed to “repel armed enemies of the United States.”
The proposal was introduced by Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-15), the chairman of the Arizona Freedom Caucus, whose page on the official website of the Arizona state legislature states that his "mission" is to "destroy the progress of Marxist communists at every level."
His bill prohibits agents from "interfering with the casting or depositing of ballots, except as otherwise authorized by law." However, Hoffman has suggested that agents are intended to verify who is and is not allowed to vote.
“The intent is to deter violations before they happen, ensure existing laws are followed, and protect the rights of every lawful voter,” Hoffman said Tuesday. “Just as importantly, the legislation makes clear that voting cannot be disrupted and that no one may be targeted simply for participating in an election. When voters see the rules applied fairly and consistently, confidence in the outcome follows.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has given agents directives to detain people without judicial warrants and perform "roving patrols" that take people's ethnicity and spoken language into account. There are many documented cases in which agents have stopped and detained US citizens purely based on their accent.
After previously floating the idea to outright cancel the 2026 midterm elections for fear of losing, President Donald Trump has more recently called for Republicans to "nationalize the voting" in certain Democratic strongholds in violation of the Constitution.
A top ally of the president, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, said earlier this month that Trump should "have ICE surround the polls" on election day so Democrats don't "steal the country again"—a reference to the baseless claim, disproven by numerous investigations and court cases, that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump.
The White House has since sought to downplay fears that agents may swarm the polls later this year.
At a press conference last week, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said deploying ICE to polling centers was "not something I’ve ever heard the president consider.” But she also hedged, saying: “I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.”
Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE, assured members of Congress during a hearing last week that "there’s no reason to use ICE officers" at polling stations.
However, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has hinted that her agency, which oversees ICE as well as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will have a role in determining who is allowed to vote.
“When it gets to Election Day, we’ve been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country,” she said on Friday.
Those comments were made as Noem paid a visit to Arizona to promote the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, more commonly known as the SAVE Act.
This bill, proposed by Republicans in the US Congress, would require voters to prove their citizenship—not just provide a voter ID—in order to vote, which advocates have warned would lead to the potential disenfranchisement of millions of eligible voters. Noem said she discussed elections with Arizona officials.
Arizona's bill to allow ICE in the polls, which will receive a hearing in the Senate on Wednesday, suggests that Republicans there expect Trump's troops to be on their way in November.
Garrett Archer, a data analyst and reporter at ABC15 Arizona, said that Republican operatives in the state view the bill as a "telegraph of the potentially incoming Trump executive order."
"An executive order cannot force states to compel voters to show ID to vote," he wrote on social media. "But what they can try to do is station federal agents at polling places who would conduct the ID check."
Republicans control both houses of the Arizona state legislature and could theoretically pass the bill without Democratic support. However, it is unlikely to be signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Elvia Díaz, a former editorial page editor and contributor at the Arizona Republic, said that although the requirement is unlikely to become law, "the mere idea is chilling."
"It signals, once again, that Trump Republicans are laying the groundwork to militarize the electoral process," she wrote in a blog post. "Placing armed immigration agents at the very locations where citizens exercise their right to vote resembles the kind of intimidation tactics seen in authoritarian regimes."
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