Gov. DeSantis signs Florida’s version of the SAVE Act
Oh. Yeah. in the morning. Good morning. Thanks so much. Oh, please be seated. Thank you. Great to be back in the villages. We got *** beautiful day and we got *** great legislation that we’re gonna sign today, and I’ll talk *** little bit of that in the morning. You know, we’re here with, we got *** number of people. We got our commissioner of agriculture, Wilton Simpson, Secretary of State for Florida Cord Bird. Uh, we’ve got the sheriffs from both Sumter and Marion, Breeding and Woods, uh, Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Bill Keene, Lake County commissioner. Senator Graw, Missoula, uh, Representatives Cobb, Persons, Malika, Ykorski, and Senator Trueow, and I think we probably have some, some more people, but we also have our chief financial officer, *** guy some of you know named Blaze Angolia, and, um, He was trying to get me to do something, uh, about, well, you know, announcing that somehow we’re gonna be ceding authority to California or this or that and then do an April Fools. The problem with that is if I say that they will splice it and they will put that up there. So I told them, uh, I’m not gonna do it, maybe in private we can do some April Fools stuff, uh, we, we were able. Able to do some stuff for my kids, but you know, I’ve just learned in this area, you say something, oh, they’re gonna do this, they’re gonna do that. But I want to thank Blaze. He used to be the senator from here and now he’s the chief financial officer. He’s doing *** really good job holding, uh, particularly local governments accountable for, for spending. And the reality is, and you know, we’re going to be working on *** bunch of stuff over the next 4 to 6 weeks in, in, in Tallahassee. But, uh, in 2019, so, so the property tax that people pay does not go to us at the state that we we’re funded differently and we’ve cut taxes every year and we’ve eliminated and we’ve done *** bunch of stuff and we’re proud of that, but the property tax in 2019, local. Governments throughout Florida took in $32 billion in property tax revenue. Uh, today it’s $60 billion. And so the question is, is, OK, yeah, you know, the population’s grown, the inflation has happened, and we still see that. Uh, so, so 32, I’m not saying that they were spending everything perfectly then, but let’s just assume it’s gonna be more than 32 when you account for that, but not 60, right? And so he’s been able to show the overspending in *** lot of these places and you’re talking about billions and billions of dollars. So when we do the homestead, uh, property tax exclusion and we do that for the ballot, just understand, uh, this is absolutely something that. will be meaningful, but it’s also something that’s doable unless you just think that more revenue should be coming in so that in 3 or 4 years they’re getting 83 or 84 billion from 32, but that’s not sustainable. We know that. So he’s done *** really good job of showing that because you’ll hear people say, oh, we need to keep taxing, otherwise we can’t afford basic service. Did they not have basic services in 2019? Uh, I seem to think, I remember coming, we, we did, right? And so how much more can people be paying and so we’re gonna do something about it. I think it’s the number one thing we can do to give people relief, um, in terms of the things, you know, look, gas has gone up, groceries, all this stuff. I wish we controlled that and I would just set it. I’d set it at $1 *** gallon. That’s not what government, unfortunately, the state government can’t do that, right? I would, I would set eggs low. I would do all that if, if that was the way it worked at that. But the one thing we do set. Uh, and in this one it’s through the Constitution that the local government is taxed. So we have an opportunity to do something really, really meaningful, and Blaze has been *** big part of that. So I want to thank him for doing that. He’s also been *** big part of stuff we’ve done over the years in our, uh, subject today which is election integrity. When you go back *** quarter of *** century, Florida was *** mess when it came to, to doing elections. We had hanging chads. We had all these different things and. And as much as there were problems, you had *** very close election in Florida that year in 20, uh, in 2000. It, it really exposed every ward. I mean, if you have *** landslide, you can still have irregularities. People just don’t fixated on it as much. This was razor thin. There’s holding up these, these things in Palm Beach County, all these places. They wanted to only count blue counties, uh, to recount all this stuff. Florida Supreme Court at that time was *** total, total disaster. That’s one of the things people don’t talk about, you know. When I got elected, we had probably the most liberal Supreme Court in the country. Uh, now I’ve put 6 on, and we have the most conservative Supreme Court in the country. And so that’s *** big change for us. So it exposed that and there was work that was done after that, which I think there was *** lot of really good stuff done but then we got to 2018 and I’ll never forget, I mean it was *** very competitive election. Florida was *** little bit different in terms of the political demography then it was, it was *** blue wave year which was tougher for us as Republicans, but anyways, we’re doing it and we come into election and then the votes come in and then. I, um, I get *** call, uh, from, from the Democrat concede. I go out, you know, I give the speech and all this, and then we had other candidates running that also won, and I, I think, I don’t know what, what it was, it was like 1%, uh, *** little bit more than that. And so great, you know, you go, you go to bed, you go the next day, and then I think like then either the next day or maybe even, uh, two days later, I get *** call. Hey, there’s, um, more votes coming in in Palm Beach and Broward Counties. I’m like, what? And they’re like, yeah, your margin’s going to go down. And, and we had these margins. And so, you know, we had an agriculture commission candidate that was winning. By like 300 or 40,000 votes and then after this vote dump, ended up losing by *** few 1000 votes and we actually had *** Democrat in 18 win win as *** result of that. And then we went from, you know, I think it’s like *** half *** percentage point off the margin and then we had *** US Senate race that went to *** hand recount because they kept chipping away. And I’m just thinking to myself like how, where, where are these ballots coming from? How is this, how is this possible? So when we came in, we said, well, we aren’t gonna play like that, we’re gonna make sure that we do it right. So one of the things we did was, um, you know, we effectuated the removal of the supervisor of elections in both Palm Beach and Broward Counties and that was important to clean house. But we also just understood that it’s very important that when the polls close, you know how many votes have been cast and then you count them. What you don’t want is to have 100,000 votes come in somehow be found. *** day or two after or 23 days. Now in California, they count for months or weeks, at least, at least weeks, sometimes months. You know, you’ll go and you’ll, you’ll wake up on election, uh, the morning after the election, someone will be up 6 or 7 points, and then the machine kicks in and then 2 weeks later they lose. And that, that totally destroys confidence in the system. So I knew that that was *** problem and we, we had to make sure we clean up. So we made those choices and look, not. Not every place in Florida was *** big problem. There were some that are big problems. Uh, those two counties historically, unfortunately had been, had been big problems, but we knew that there were other things that needed to be done and particularly where we saw what happened in the 2020 election in some of these states where they had the mass mail balloting, you had ballot harvesting, Zucker bucks, you had all these different things were happening where, where no one knew what the hell was going on. So we said we’re not gonna do that and I know Blaze was very involved in pushing legislation. Uh, Commissioner Simpson, who was *** Senate leader, uh, helped shepherd this through the Florida Senate, which, uh, was really put Florida as the leader in election integrity around the country. We have now mandated that voter rolls are updated annually and that ineligible voters are removed. Uh, we have, uh, when you do an absentee ballot request, you now got to show voter ID, uh, so that we know where that’s going. Uh, we’ve also, uh, banned ballot harvesting in the state of Florida, which that’s *** very bad practice. I mean, how ridiculous is, you know, it was *** big thing to have *** secret ballot, right? You go in, you pull the curtain or whatever, however you do. I mean, we have the dividers in Florida, some places you used to even have *** curtain, you do and you put it in. It’s kind of like *** solemn thing. And then that devolved into like someone with *** satchel of votes just dumping these in like some dropbox in the middle of town somewhere that’s unattended. Uh, what *** farce. So we, we banned the ballot harvesting. We banned having drop boxes in the community just sitting there. You can bring it to the supervisor’s office or you could if you, where people vote, if you want to drop it off, that’s one thing, or you can mail in the absentee and you got to have ID to be able to do that. We banned, uh, mass mailing of ballots. So in California, they just send *** ballot to everybody indiscriminately, whether you ask for it or not. That’s not. Absentee voting, that’s just sending these things out, and they these ballots will just float around in the ether in these states and in places like, like Nevada that does it, you’re in Vegas and you’re like renting an apartment, and you’ll, they’ll send you and then they’ll send ballots for the 3 or 4 people that rented the apartment before you did. So you got 4 or 5 ballots showing up at your place. That is totally unacceptable. And they don’t update the voting rolls. They don’t update the voting rolls. They’re sending ballots to people who are not even living in the state anymore and, and that is not the way you do business. So we’ve made sure that that doesn’t happen in the state of Florida. We also made sure that you have, uh, identifying documents if you’re changing voter registration, and we did something that I think we were the first ones in the country to do it. We banned something called Zucker bucks. So what happened in 2020 was you had these nonprofit groups, uh, funded by, um, Mark Zuckerberg and I think some other people, but he was the main, he did hundreds of millions. And what they would do is they would go to like Milwaukee, and they would give people to actually run the election from this quote, nonprofit. And so they’re going to harvest ballots in Democrat areas basically and they’re going to administer in Democrat areas and it’s like, well, wait *** minute, elections are *** government function you’re subcontracting out to some uh PAC or some nonprofit that’s got hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s not the. Way this, this is supposed to work. So we banned it and I think we were the first ones to do it. He, there wasn’t *** lot of Zuckerbucks in Florida, to be frank. It was more in some of these states like Wisconsin. I think there were Zucker bucks in Nevada, maybe Pennsylvania, maybe Michigan, maybe some of these other places. So you had some, Georgia, *** lot of Zuckerbucks in Georgia. So you’re, so, so we got rid of it and banned it. Now, some may have heard, uh, Zuckerberg bought *** place in, in Florida down in, down in Miami, and, um, just want to let you know, uh, that is not going to change our posture on Zuckerbucks one bit. They are banned. We also have no, uh, when you submit *** ballot, um, there’s no internet voting, uh, it’s all you put the piece of paper in the, in the kitty, uh, and then you have hand counts, you have audits, you have everything like that. So, so, so it’s, it’s really robust, it’s really good. But we also understood that you can have the best rules in the world, but if people violate the rules and nothing happens, then they’re not worth as much. And the reality is, I think it’s twofold. One, *** lot of prosecutors focus on kind of the bread and butter crimes that happen. I mean, we just signed *** bill, unfortunately, to um hold sex offenders accountable. Uh, this one guy was let out. He, he got convicted of pursuing sex with *** minor. He showed up, the jury rendered the verdict, and then you have sentencing assigned at *** later date, and the judge released him while sentencing was pending instead of remanding him to custody, and he ended up murdering *** five year old girl. And so, you know, these are things that that are obviously very significant. And I think *** lot of prosecutors just instinctively are going to gravitate to those kind of core. For crimes that that they wanna try to hold people accountable for so I get that. Then you also have, you know, in some of these jurisdictions they just don’t believe in doing doing voter fraud. That’s just the reality. You’re not gonna see them particularly in the bigger blue areas. They say it doesn’t exist and they don’t wanna pursue. So what we did is we established in state government an Office of Election Crimes. and security. So the purpose of that office is to investigate and prosecute voter fraud, and we’ve now brought more prosecutions for voter fraud in Florida since that office was created than probably everywhere else in the country combined at this point. Uh, we’ve brought cases against illegal aliens, against people that voted in multiple jurisdictions, against convicted people that are. Convicted of rape and and murder that are not eligible to be voters, so we’ve been able to do that and actually hold people accountable. And what I found is if people know there’s gonna be accountability, then, then doing any shenanigan, it’s just not worth it. Why would you want to do it and end up with *** significant penalty? You do it when you think you know you can get away with it. And so we put the kibosh on that where our election crimes. Uh, office, I think it’s been really, really, uh, good. And then compare that to what happens in other states. So in 22, 4 years ago, we had these reforms in and I told people we’re gonna, you’re gonna have the results very quickly and uh the polls close at 7 Eastern and 7 and 7 Central, so 8 Eastern basically the whole state is closed by that point and, and you had the results uh by 9. o’clock at night. Uh, now granted, we won by so much that the election wasn’t in doubt right after the polls closed, they called the race immediately. It’s been *** long time since that’s happened in Florida. I can tell you that, but that happened. But they tabulated and then they produced the results. 2024 presidential election, 1012 million votes, however many it was, comes in, tabulates, and you have the, the results. Compare that. To some of these other places where it’s like, well, you know, we got to get this ballots in and we got these coming in and this and that, and, you know, Arizona takes time, California, Pennsylvania, they were actually accepting ballots in Pennsylvania that came in after the election with no postmark. Well, how are you doing that? And so you have all these different ways that they’ve done it in ways that don’t inspire confidence. So all you have to do is watch these elections and see how Florida performs, and we’ve become the envy of the nation. Who would have thought that 25 years ago? Not many people probably would have thought that, and we’re *** big state. It’s not always easy to be able to do. At the same time, as much as we’ve led on banning ballot harvesting, Zucker box, voter ID, all these things that are really important, we know that there’s always more to do. So today I’ll be signing House Bill 991, which is the Florida version of the Save Act, which will bolster our election integrity measures. Now it’s interesting. They’re proposing the S Save Act in Washington DC. It does *** number of things. Well, the original proposal did *** lot. It, it did things not even related to elections only it did things like ban the mut mutilation and sex changes for minors, which I obviously support, but we did that years ago in Florida, so that’s done. There were other things that we’re proposing about protecting women’s sports, which I obviously support, but we did that years ago in Florida. And then on some of the voter identification and making sure people are citizens, I support that, but it’s interesting if the Save America Act federally were to be enacted 99.7%. Uh, of Florida voters have already complied with what that law requires and so you’re talking in Florida very small number of people that would, and, and not to say they’re not eligible, I mean it may have been when they signed up or whatever. So, so that’s pretty impressive that that’s where we already are as *** state that this major piece of legislation would have an impact, but it would have *** much smaller impact in Florida because we’ve already done what they’re looking to be able to do. But this bill protects and expands integrity in our voter registration process, uh, by requiring the verification of US citizenship, uh, when you’re doing your voter registration. Our constitution in the state of Florida says only American citizens are allowed to vote in our elections and so we need to make sure that that is the law. The bill also requires all voting to be done using paper ballots, uh, allowing for *** verifiable, uh, hard copy in the event of *** recount, and we keep all that, the we don’t, the state, the supervisors do. You have some of these elections that are very close and sometimes there are, they go through and you can count, you can count by hand and go through and do that. And, and I think you need, you need physical evidence. I’ve never supported the idea that you just vote on *** computer because who knows what’s happening with those so this way if there’s *** dispute you just grab the ballots, you go through, you have observers and people are able to see for themselves. Uh, we’re also making sure that when you’re providing information or identification. That we’re using secure forms of identification so we’re not using, we tried to do this years ago legislature didn’t do it, but they finally did it now, uh, about the student IDs. I mean *** student ID does not mean you are *** resident of the state of Florida. Student ID means you’re going to school now most of our state. Universities our undergrad is 90% in-state systemwide but still yeah that doesn’t mean that that’s everybody so they’re not doing that uh you gotta have ***, *** valid um ID that that proves that you are *** resident of the state of Florida. Uh, we also bolster our. Accountability for election crimes, particularly petitions. So these petitions, it’s been, first of all, we’ve done *** lot to rein in the abuse, but they try to get on special interests. They spend tens of millions of dollars to try to get on the ballot. And to try to change our constitution and they’re allowed to write an amendment. Are they writing that amendment in *** way that’s clear to voters or are they trying to write it in *** way that’s gonna trick as many voters as possible? Obviously, it’s the latter. So they try to do this. All the people, all the, the groups that are involved in this will make money if these things pass. And so they got to get these petitions. And what we found is it’s rife with fraud, fraudulent petitions. There’ll be people, it’s like, you know, hey, you know, I’m, So, you know, you have ***, um, *** 75 year old lady in Lady Lake, and all of *** sudden, she’s being told that she signed *** petition to make, uh, weed *** constitutional right. And she, I didn’t like that. I didn’t ever sign that. Well, how did it get there then? Somebody did that. And so there’s been *** number of prosecutions about this. Uh, we need to make the, the penalties even, and honestly, cheating in *** candidate race is bad, but cheating to change the constitution. You know, you have one election, you have another one that comes up. So if, if, if somehow there’s *** miscarriage of justice, that’s much easier to correct. Once something’s in the constitution, you can’t unring that bell. And I just think that that should be *** process that’s being done with integrity and transparency. I think it should reflect the actual will of Floridians, not special interests that try to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Uh, we also have transparency to the candidate qualifying process because we want voters to be more informed. So you’re not allowed to qualify if you don’t meet party affiliation requirements. Uh, you have to attest on oath that you meet all the constitutional requirements for office, um, and if you don’t, then, uh, there will be cause of action to be able to, to keep you off the ballot. Uh, it requires candidates to disclose any dual citizenship they may possess. I think that’s important that you know that as *** voter. And then one of my favorites, uh, requires new and returning candidates for Congress to disclose stock trading activity while in Congress. And so what it’ll be, so say, you know, Joe Blow’s running for Congress, you will have to say, I intend to trade stocks, or I will not trade stocks, and you will have that information. And if they go and they say they’re not, and then they do, then when they run again, they have to say, you know, did I, did I trade or not trade? And, you know, the reality is, is it’s, it’s gotten to the point where it’s become *** national farce, what goes on. When you have Nancy Pelosi, uh, outperforming people like Warren Buffett, when you have, When you have members of Congress, you know, buying things and then, you know, *** week or two later, major events occur that causes those stocks to go up, you know, it’s one thing to hit the jackpot once in your life, but when you see it routinely for people that never had any financial. Acumen all of *** sudden show up to Congress, uh, and they become like, you know, the, the best hedge fund managers in the country. Something’s wrong with that picture. And I remember it was bad 1015 years ago when I was, um, uh, uh, *** US congressman, so I was *** three term. US congressman, I’ve recovered fully from that experience and I’m very clear thinking now and you know, you go in there, it’s crazy, but what I said was I get in and I said I’m not doing any stock trading and so since I got elected in 2012 to the president, I’ve not traded *** single stock uh while I’ve been in office and I just think that that’s the right thing to do. Now I didn’t need to do that, but I didn’t want. To be in *** situation where, you know, I’m selling Exxon or buying Exxon or buying micro and then something happens where I’m voting and people, oh no, you’re voting on that because of that interest. So, you know, you do the 401k, you do whatever you do for just normal investment, but I think it’s really bad luck when you see what happens with these members of Congress. So I know they’re trying to ban that practice. We don’t have the authority to ban. Because they’re federal officials, but we do have the authority to disclosure and do the disclosing of this, and we need to return in this country, uh, to *** little bit better, uh, civic spiritedness, some civic virtue, like when you get in these positions, uh, it’s not about you, right? I mean, it’s about doing the people’s business, and that may mean you sacrifice *** little bit. And that’s just the way it ought to be, but I think *** lot of folks up there, you know, they view it as an opportunity to be pigs at the trough and just like, you know, do whatever they can. And then people have lost *** lot of confidence in their representatives over the years, partially because of the culture that’s been created. That’s one of the reasons I’m *** big believer in term limits for members of Congress. I just think you need change and you need to force the change. So I am excited to be able to, to sign this. This, this is, this is *** big deal, but it isn’t as big *** deal in Florida because of all the hard work we’ve done over many, many years, and I think from the time Wilton was Senate president until probably 23, and that, that we had two or three year period where all these issues we just addressed in *** very strong way and you know what happens on all these, I sign it. They sue us, right? They go to *** liberal judge. The liberal judge sides with them, then we appeal, and then we win, right? So that’s probably what will happen, um, on this. I’ve just seen it enough. I’ve seen the song and dance long enough, but it’s funny because anything that, that we do, we’ll sign, they’ll forum shop, they’ll go to it, and there’s some judges will rule against us 100% no matter what, no matter how many times they get reversed. So you do it. And then media, oh, *** judge rules against Florida election bill, like real. And then, you know, six months later, that decision gets reversed, and you won’t find much reporting on it getting reversed. It’s just that initial one, right? So we’ve had that and I would say on our election stuff, I mean, 90% have been, have been overturned when, when *** judge has tried to stop it on appeal, they get ***. Overturned and sometimes I think we’ve even gotten to the US Supreme Court to do *** stay so that’s just par for the course. We understand that that’s happening and we do our best to be able to, to overcome that, but that’s what I anticipate will happen with this. These changes aren’t effective immediately. They’re gonna be effective, uh, in the not too distant future. Nevertheless, I think they’re gonna try to do it and I know there’s *** lot of talk about different stuff with elections federally, you know, the Congress, um. You know, they’ve missed *** lot of opportunities over the years to address, I think some real problems in elections is one of them. I think there’s *** lot more that that could have been done with immigration uh to, to stop some of the madness that we see now. The border’s great now since President Trump came in. But I will tell you there’s visa fraud. There’s all kinds of chain migration, birthright citizenship for people here illegally coming in, birth tourism from, from the CCP, sending people in, go on *** three week vacation, have *** baby, get American citizenship for the baby, and then you go back to communist China. How does that make sense? And the Supreme. The Supreme Court is going to hear arguments about the 14th Amendment and whether that means that citizenship applies to people that are not authorized to be here. Now, when the founder, well, actually it wasn’t the founders, it was the Civil War generation, when the framers of that provision of the 14th Amendment, what they were trying to do was overturn the Dred Scott case because the Dred Scott case said Dred Scott was not *** citizen. Uh, of the United States, which, you know, he was, you know, came from *** family that, you know, you go back far enough, was brought here against their will. And then this is the only thing he knew, uh, much different than somebody coming illegally violating the law. So, so Dred Scott lost the case and Abraham Lincoln was very forceful in saying that was *** bad decision. And it shouldn’t be followed. Lincoln said it shouldn’t be followed. You know, now they’ll say, oh, you know, you got to the courts are so sad. Lincoln said, I’m not, I’m not going to follow that decision. Then when the Civil War ended, they did the 14th Amendment, and the idea was to clarify that, no, Dred Scott should have won that case and that he, as well as all the former slaves were citizens of the United States. But then that has now been applied in ways that the framers of that provision would have never contemplated because first of all, we didn’t have coming to America was *** big deal in 1865, 1966. You just couldn’t hop on *** plane and get here, stay three weeks and hop on *** plane and go back to *** foreign country. That wasn’t the way it worked. And so you, they, they weren’t thinking in terms of people flooding in in violation of the law. But I think if you look at those debates, clearly their intent was not to lead to what’s happened. That that’s for sure. The question is, is what does the language actually say? How was that originally understood by the people that ratified it? And I think, I mean, yeah, you look at the evidence of that, I don’t think that they intended someone to just come here on *** visit who’s foreign. Have ***, have *** kid then go back and then that kid becomes uh an American citizen that kind of cheapens the whole process when you make it *** tourist, uh, thing rather than something that, um, you know, was what they intended. So the court’s going to look at that today. I don’t know there’s procedural things there may be reasons why they don’t rule for the administration that have nothing to do, but, but hopefully. We’ll get some analysis because they really haven’t ever addressed this specific question. They’ve addressed legal immigrants, someone on *** visa from China. They’ve never addressed the illegal. So I think it’s something that’s really, really important, but I just, you know, when I, I, I saw, I put out *** thing today, there was an analysis, uh, in the most recent year that they have figures, I think 2023, 9%. Of all babies born in America were born either to people in the country illegally or on birth tourism. Is that something that we think is good for this country? I just don’t think that’s any way that you run *** successful republican system of government. So I’m gonna be looking very intently on that. I think the argument’s actually going on right now. We’ll get *** little bit of tea leaves, uh, after that. And we’ll just hope, but, but that’s something Congress probably could address too, because, uh, they have the enforcement power for Article 14th Amendment. They could probably legislate within that, uh, to, to avoid the things that we’re talking about, and they’ve never even really tried to do that. And so that’s been very, very disappointing. But anyways, uh, I’m not anticipating them passing *** save act federally, and I know there’s *** lot of states that need *** lot of work, including California, including some of these places, but I think you guys here should be comforted in the fact that Florida yet again is ahead of the curve. OK, Wilton, you wanna come up? Thank you, Governor, and I’m gonna start off by saying I’m glad we did not cede our authority to elections for California Governor, and, um, and you know it’s *** real honor to be here today, and I just like to brag on the governor just for *** minute. I’ve served with the governor he’s now been here 7 years, and, um, and I’ve been in, I was in the Senate and Senate president, um, during part of that during COVID, and this governor not only did brilliantly leading us through COVID. The hurricanes and the major hurricanes that we’ve had here in the last several years, but all of the things that we’ve mentioned and the governor just mentioned on election integrity, most of that work was done in *** bill when I was Senate president. We were very, very proud of those accomplishments back in either 21 or 22 or, or both. And so it’s been *** great run, Governor and, and you’ve earned the title of America’s governor. So thank you, thank you for doing this. Safe, secure, and legal legal elections are the corner cornerstone of democracy. We know, we all know how important our law enforcement is to our state and how much they do for us. We’d always, we don’t always look at how critical the elections are for this country. The elected officials standing here today did not forget and we’ve got some great leaders here today. Florida is leading the nation on election integrity and think about that. If you were here in ’01, some of us were, and we stayed up for two or 34 days trying to figure out which Chad was hanging right and uh fortunately we, we, we got that over with but um we went from that position to the best state in the union and this governor’s work has had *** lot to do with that and we’re really thankful for that, for that. As the governor said, we banned Zuckerbucks. That was *** big deal 5 years ago, right? Um, we created in that same piece of legislation Election Integrity Office. We empowered state prosecutors to go after the fraud. We banned ballot harvesting. All of those things seemed like *** distant future, but at the time that was *** really, really big deal. Um, and basic and essentially Florida was the Save Act before there was *** potential save Act federally. Since then, our legislature has continued to pass significant pro-democracy reforms each year. Congratulations to the House and Senate sponsors here today, Senator Graw, Representative Parson Maleka. I know you’ll be speaking about the bill in *** few minutes. Uh, I am here to thank you for your hard work and celebrate the latest reform aimed at protecting Florida’s elections. Today we signed the Florida’s 2026 version of the Save Act. What we are hopeful for, because in Florida we don’t take these things for granted, these things were not done in *** vacuum. We did it intentionally to have the best elections in the country. We hope that our legislative, our congressional, and Senate partners in Washington will have the same courage that we’ve had here in the state of Florida and make this *** nationwide issue. Thank you for having me here and thank you for your integrity, Governor. Well, thanks to the commissioner and thanks for uh what he did when he was the leader of the Florida Senate to get the bulk of what we’ve done. We’ve done *** lot, but definitely the bulk of it was done under his, um, his tenure in the Senate and it’s been really, really significant. We also have, um, so Blaze, I mentioned as CFO what he’s doing, but when he was in the House and when he was in the Senate. Uh, his two top issues that he really spearheaded, I, I think, were, uh, combating illegal immigration and election integrity. And so all that we’ve done across all these different issues, uh, across all the different facets of those issues, really Blaze has had an awful lot to do with it. And of course the property tax. So that’s *** pretty good to have *** public official focusing on the property tax, focusing on illegal immigration, stopping it and focusing on uh election integrity. That’s, uh, that, that’s ***, that’s, uh, you know, uh, *** really big deal. So and he’s done *** great job with all of it so come on up. Good morning everyone. It’s great to be back in the Villages. I had the honor of representing you all in the state Senate. First of all, I am, uh, deeply disappointed that you did not take the time to play the biggest April Fool’s joke on everyone, um. First, I wanna thank the bill sponsors for doing what you’re doing. Um, as the governor said that immigration election integrity and taxes were my biggest issues, the things that I focused on most when I was in the legislature, uh, and I know that this issue of an election integrity is in great hands with both of you so I appreciate that. I also wanna give *** shout out to newly elected state rep for the area, Samantha Scott. She is going to be, uh, an. Outstanding representative. I look forward to seeing what she is going to be able to, uh, accomplish first before we go into the bill, I do wanna praise and thank this governor for tackling *** lot of the affordability issues head on here in the state of Florida. People forget that taxes are part of your housing payment and housing affordability, um, is an issue that everyone likes to talk about, uh, but very few people. Actually take action on it Governor, I wanna thank you for your leadership on this. Um, this state will be in better hands this November when we get that constitutional amendment on the ballot and people start seeing their property tax bill being reduced here in the state of Florida. Um, as the governors said, and I will reiterate that immigration and elections are two of the biggest issues that I work on and just because I’m in the CFO. Office now does not mean that I stopped caring about these issues. So, um, in the legislature we passed then with the help of the Senate president with the leadership of this governor, Senate Bill 90, *** lot of the components that you heard here today, uh, were, were in that bill, um, and the thing that cannot be understated here is the proactivity of this legislature, especially the pro proactivity of this governor. This governor and I sat down years ago and we started realizing the deficiencies in the election systems in *** lot of areas of the uh in states, uh, and quite frankly some of the deficiencies that were going on here in the state of Florida, but this governor didn’t wait. He said, let’s get in the room. Let’s figure out what the issues are and not only what the issues are, let’s figure out what the potential issues could be years down the line. And that’s why we wrote at that point the landmark bill, Senate Bill 90. Which was challenged in the courts overturned, um, and now it is the law of the land, which is probably one of the most comprehensive election laws, uh, ever written. We went from being the laughing stock of the nation in the year 2000 to being the gold standard of election integrity here in the state of Florida. So it’s not just sitting back on our laurels. This is something that we need to do every 2 years, every 2 years, my opinion, my opinion only. Um, we should be putting up an election integrity bill to make sure that we are closing the loopholes because no matter what we put on paper, no matter what is passed into law, you’re going to have bad actors trying to circumvent them. We need to identify what they’re doing and close the loopholes and make sure that it doesn’t happen because if we do not stay ahead of this, they’re going to. Continually try to game the system in addition to that immigration this governor, um, and the legislature this state has led on the issue of illegal immigration enforcement. We’re leading the United States in deporting criminal illegal aliens from our communities, um, and that again because we started realizing that this. Has become such *** big issue that we had to take action. Election integrity we had to take action immigration we had to take action and that’s why we are now taking action on election integrity as it regards to illegal immigration. Here’s the secret, and I don’t know if many people in this room actually know this, but illegals are actually voting in elections now. Whether people want to, uh, um, you can refute that all you want, but it is absolutely 100% true that illegals are voting in our elections. How do we know that if you’re an illegal, there are, uh, cities in Maryland that you can vote. It’s actually in their ordinances. You can actually vote in, um, in, in Oakland and San Francisco as an illegal. It is actually written there. So the bad the this bad idea that somebody from another country that had come over. To our shores illegally can somehow um cast *** ballot and figure out how we’re going to be able to govern ourselves if they’re not even *** legal resident citizen of this country is already ingrained. The bad idea is already ingrained. Why wouldn’t we want to take the extra step and make sure that illegals do not vote in state and or federal elections? And again, here’s another issue Florida Save Act again, the state of Florida is leading on this issue. The president is right on the national level. This governor has been right on the local level. There is absolutely no excuse if Florida can do it. There is absolutely no excuse why the federal government cannot pass the Save Act. It’s sort of ridiculous. Now you’re gonna have people coming out and saying that this is *** voter suppression bill. Every time we try to crack down on people gaming the system when it comes to elections, you’ll have people file lawsuits and people claim that is *** voter suppression bill. In fact, almost every bill. That we’ve ever passed they claim that and almost every election after they claim the voter suppression um was taking place voter participation increased year after year after year that’s some of the things that the media won’t tell you because um especially now everyone is in favor of voter ID. It’s ridiculous that illegals, um, we’re having it’s quite frankly ridiculous that we’re actually having this conversation of trying to keep illegal. From voting out of our federal elections, just think about that. You wouldn’t even think about that or that wouldn’t even cross your mind 3 or 4 years ago, but it’s the reality today. But this again once again is this governor and the legislature being proactive, making sure that we’re doing everything that we possibly can to keep our elections safe and secure. Governor, I wanna thank you for what you’re doing bill sponsors, I wanna thank you for what you’re doing. God bless you. God bless the great state of Florida. Well, thanks, Blaze, and um. Uh, we’re gonna hear from the two, bill sponsors, uh, in *** sec. I know, and I did mention he’s not gonna speak, but our Secretary of State Cord Bird, so he’s in charge of overseeing all the elections, and I know that there have been, um, you know, we just had the one guy that got picked up. He was at Palm Beach. So, uh, he’s been very, very involved with all of that and obviously producing, uh, good results, but he’s also Secretary of State is kind of our top cultural official in Florida. And he’s, uh, spearheading under my direction our America 250 celebration. And I know, are we gonna bring any statue to the villages? Do we know yet? We’re we’re working on, so, you know, where they have the founding fathers name like the counties that have the founders as the namesake, uh, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Monroe, whatever, uh, we’re bringing statues and, and putting statues of those founders there because, you know, blue states are taking them down. I get them at *** great discount, so it’s *** buyer’s market, you know, why not do it, right? So. So we’ve done, uh, Monroe down in the Florida Keys. We’ve done Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton County. We’ve done Ben Franklin in Franklin County. We’ve done, um, we have not done James Madison yet, but I think that’s on, on the way to be able to do. And I got this beautiful Washington from Mount Vernon. They loaned it to us that I put in the state capitol. So when you go into. The Capitol building, if you turn left to go to the governor’s, uh, office, you see this, this great, uh, this great statue of Washington. We’re getting that *** replica of that and we’re going to put that in Washington County. But then we’ve also done people that have exemplified the founding ideals of the country. So we did Frederick Douglass in Saint Augustine. He gave *** big speech there in like 1889. We did Ronald Reagan at Florida International University. The president’s house is named after him, and so we put *** great, really big statue, really nice, nicely done. We’ve got, um, we’ve got Calvin Coolidge coming up in Lake Wales. That was the last public address for Coolidge as president was dedication of Bach Tower Gardens. Uh, right there, beautiful, amazing part of Florida, and it was by that time they had videos, so you can actually look at YouTube and, and watch him give this, this talk, and then, um, and then he left office like *** month later and so that, and he was *** very good president. Um, and he didn’t get, doesn’t get enough credit, so we’re gonna give him credit for that, and we’ve got others, uh, coming in *** variety of different things. So it’s really exciting. I don’t know if there’s any other state that’s doing much of anything about this. Um, you know, it’s like, I mean, I can only imagine like if we had like Philadelphia and Florida, like I would be, you know, we would do stuff all that. So there’s *** lot of history in other parts of the country. We consider ourselves the 14th colony because we weren’t part of the original 13. But it was, uh, it was, it was on the minds of *** lot of founding fathers, and they wanted Florida to be *** part, uh, of the United States, and that, that happened, of course, over many, many years and eventually brought that in for *** landing and now we’re, look at us now, we’re this big engine. I mean, who would have thought that back then, and, and, but we’re gonna be doing more, and I don’t know what what we do with villages. I know we had talked about maybe bringing something here, but I think *** lot of people here would appreciate it. Um, if we did. OK, so we’ve got our legislators, and, you know, I appreciate what they’ve done on this, but also these two in particular, you know, all these Republicans, they run as lions, and then they get in, and they end up as lambs. *** lot of them do, like in Washington, all this other stuff, there’s *** difference between how they campaign and then how, how much they’re fighting when they get in. We just have *** problem with that in the Republican Party across the country.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a revised voter registration system that includes new requirements to verify an applicant’s legal status. During a news conference in The Villages on Wednesday, DeSantis signed HB 991 into law. DeSantis said the new law requires voters to verify their U.S. citizenship when registering, mandates the use of paper ballots to enable auditable recounts and prohibits student IDs as valid voter identification. He said only government-issued identification proving Florida residency will be accepted at the polls. The law also increases penalties for election-related crimes.Several top state officials, including Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, attended the event and stood behind the governor during the signing. “When the polls close, you know how many votes have been cast, and you count them,” DeSantis said.The governor described the bill as a “common-sense” election security law. However, opponents argue that the bill adds barriers and could block people from voting.
THE VILLAGES, Fla. —
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a revised voter registration system that includes new requirements to verify an applicant’s legal status.
During a news conference in The Villages on Wednesday, DeSantis signed HB 991 into law.
DeSantis said the new law requires voters to verify their U.S. citizenship when registering, mandates the use of paper ballots to enable auditable recounts and prohibits student IDs as valid voter identification.
He said only government-issued identification proving Florida residency will be accepted at the polls. The law also increases penalties for election-related crimes.
Several top state officials, including Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, attended the event and stood behind the governor during the signing.
“When the polls close, you know how many votes have been cast, and you count them,” DeSantis said.
The governor described the bill as a “common-sense” election security law. However, opponents argue that the bill adds barriers and could block people from voting.