March 12, 2026
TALLAHASSEE – All Voting is Local Action Florida State Director Brad Ashwell issued the following statement in response to the passage of House Bill 991 through the state legislature, which would require unnecessary steps for eligible voters to prove citizenship:
“Nearly 8.2 million Floridians who are citizens do not have a passport. And if they don’t have a birth certificate, Florida lawmakers just told them that they don’t want them voting. We now know that 872,000 Floridians also don’t have REAL ID. Seniors, people with disabilities or low incomes, students, and those who live in rural areas are all voters who may not have easy access to a passport or birth certificate. The lawmakers in our state who created and passed this bill know that. This is a way for them to keep more voters from voting and control the results of our elections.
“Requiring more steps for voters to prove their eligibility when we’ve already had accurate systems and safeguards in place to check citizenship is not something that Floridians or Americans want. They want all eligible voters to be able to vote. But the election deniers who run the state want to hold onto power by stripping agency away from voters with regressive, show-your-papers legislation like this bill.”