MIAMI — On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s version of the SAVE Act.
Local 10’s Christina Vazquez spoke to the elections supervisors from Miami-Dade and Broward counties about voter fraud.
“We really don’t have that many cases,” said Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Alina Garcia.
“That’s basically what we have seen, and that’s what the evidence shows,” added Broward Elections Supervisor Joe Scott.
“Right now, we also check to see that people are citizens,” continued Garcia. “The secretary of state does that, but we do it at the back end.
“Yes, this process has more or less already been in place with Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles,” said Scott. “I would advise people to do is if you haven’t gotten your REAL ID yet, to go ahead and do that because if you complete that process, then you’ll be fine in terms of your voting status.”
Should the SAVE Act survive the current legal challenge and take effect on Jan. 1, 2027, both supervisors say citizens with REAL ID compliant Florida driver’s licenses should be fine.
“The DMV has been for many years already updating their records,” said Garcia.
“Overall, over 90% of our people actually get registered to vote through DHSMV,” said Scott. “So it’s very important for people who get naturalized to go back to the DHSMV and update their information, and now that they have naturalization certificate, they can show that they are US citizen.”
One group that may face a new hurdle to voting is students, as student IDs will no longer be accepted as voter identification.
“The other group of people that I have concerns about would be the children of naturalized citizens,” said Scott. “So sometimes, the children of naturalized citizens don’t actually get their own certificate and they may not have a document to prove, and a lot of times, what they’ll end up needing to do is provide their parents paperwork and their birth certificate, possibly from another country, that shows that they are the child of that person who got naturalized.”
Added Garcia: “No matter what, we’re going to be ready and we’re going to ensure that people can get to vote.”
Scott said evidence shows that noncitizen voting is extremely rare, and that a bigger issue may be lower voter turnout.
“What I think is interesting is that one thing about our country is that we famously have a lot of people who are eligible to vote that don’t,” he said. “There’s a very large number of US citizens who do not participate in elections. We’ll consider it a high turnout if 75% of our registered voters, which means one out of four people who actually got registered, don’t actually vote in our presidential elections, which tend to be our highest turnout elections.”
ADVICE FOR PARENTS
“Just getting your child a REAL ID is probably the best thing for parents to do so that your child is prepared to be able to become a registered voter,” said Scott. “Now for the kids who don’t have a REAL ID, we will have to have a process to verify those documents. So basically we’re going to need to see your birth certificate. We’re going to need to see mom and dad’s naturalization papers plus a birth certificate from another country to connect those dots.”
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