State elections officials are working with the agency that licenses drivers to identify voters illegally on the rolls because they aren’t citizens, and has already flagged 2,600 people who are registered but may be ineligible, Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Wednesday.
Detzner said the Department of State, which includes the Division of Elections, started working more than a year ago with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on the project.
New rules require anyone receiving a new driver license or renewing their license or state ID card to submit documentation proving their status as legal residents of the country.
With that requirement and other elements of the DHSMV system, elections officials can compare databases to find voters that may not be citizens.
A statement released by Detzner’s office said the names of more than 2,600 voters who may not be citizens have been identified through the new process and sent to county elections supervisors for further review.
If found to be ineligible, they would then be removed from voter rolls.
“Our partnership with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles will be instrumental in our efforts to ensure the accuracy of Florida’s voter rolls, not only this year but in the years to follow,” Detzner said.
“Florida voters need to know only eligible citizens can cast a ballot and we’re doing everything in our power to ensure that is the case,” he said.
The prospect of large numbers of ineligible voters has driven the move to make it harder to register to vote and to cast a ballot — which is a key point of contention between those who say the government’s main role in elections is to prevent fraud to ensure their legitimacy, and those who say the government should primarily be concerned with making sure those who are eligible can easily sign up and vote.