发布时间：2026年3月11日，美国东部时间凌晨5:00
作者：弗雷德里卡·舒滕
越来越多由共和党主导的州正迅速推进新的投票限制措施，在唐纳德·特朗普总统议程中的一个关键支柱上继续推进——该支柱迄今为止在国会山一直停滞不前。
上周，犹他州和南达科他州的共和党控制的立法机构通过了要求在州和地方选举中提供公民身份证明的法案。这些措施目前等待州长的签署。
周三，佛罗里达州参议院——该州拥有超过1300万登记选民——计划审议一项公民身份核查法案。一项配套措施已在佛罗里达州众议院通过。
与此同时，在民主党掌控权力的州，支持选举规则变革（民主党反对这些变革）的倡导者正试图通过公投措施来实施这些变革。这包括加利福尼亚州，在那里一项选民身份证法案似乎将进入11月的投票，并且如果成功，将影响该州2300万选民。
这些州层面的努力意味着，即使联邦层面的立法没有进展，全国数千万选民在未来选举中可能面临新的规则和限制。
要求个人在登记投票时提供公民身份文件，并在投票时出示身份证明，是特朗普优先推动的联邦“SAVE美国法案”的核心内容。
该法案上月在众议院通过，但在参议院陷入僵局。参议院共和党人虽占多数，但不足以克服民主党人的阻挠。
特朗普总统多次提出毫无根据的指控，称美国选举充斥着欺诈。他最近几天加强了对该法案的言论，声称在国会制定新的投票规则之前，他将拒绝签署任何立法。他还呼吁议员们在提案中增加更多内容，包括结束无理由邮寄投票和禁止跨性别运动员参加体育运动。
本周，总统暗示，实施限制措施将帮助他的政党在今年秋季的高风险国会选举中获胜。“这将确保中期选举的胜利，”他周一在佛罗里达州多拉的高尔夫俱乐部举行的众议院共和党人务虚会上表示，“如果你们不做到这一点，就会有大麻烦，这是我的看法。”
唐纳德·特朗普总统于3月9日在佛罗里达州多拉向众议院共和党人发表讲话
罗伯托·施密特/盖蒂图片社
佛罗里达州的激烈辩论
在多拉以北数百英里处，塔拉哈西的共和党人正准备推进特朗普投票议程的一个关键支柱。
“尽管关于‘SAVE美国法案’的重要辩论发生在全国舞台上，但我们可以而且必须在佛罗里达州继续发挥引领作用，成为选举诚信的黄金标准，”佛罗里达州众议院法案提案人、共和党州议员珍娜·珀森斯-穆利卡（Jenna Persons-Mulicka）在最近的委员会辩论中表示。
该法案上月以83-31的投票结果在共和党控制的州众议院通过，要求选举官员利用州内已有的信息核实选民的公民身份状态。
数百万佛罗里达人已经根据《真实身份法案》的要求，向州机动车管理机构提供了公民身份文件。如果无法核实公民身份，选民最终可能会被从选民名单中移除，除非他们提供公民身份证明。
珀森斯-穆利卡表示，在被移除之前，选民将有多次机会证明自己的资格。
反对者表示，这一变革将使许多选民陷入额外的文书工作要求——特别是年轻的首次投票者、可能没有驾照的残疾居民，以及多年前可能已放弃驾照的年长佛罗里达人。
“数万（甚至更多）美国公民——其中包括老年人——已经登记，但将难以获得或无法提供证明其公民身份的文件，”支持投票权组织“所有投票都是本地的”（All Voting is Local）的佛罗里达主任布拉德·阿什韦尔（Brad Ashwell）表示。
在最近的众议院辩论中，迈阿密地区的州议员阿什利·甘特（Ashley Gantt）称新要求“实际上是另一种人头税”。
这位民主党人表示，她花了一年时间试图为她的年迈姑妈更新佛罗里达州驾照，却难以获得出生证明。她的姑妈1950年出生在种族隔离的南卡罗来纳州一个小镇，附近没有黑人医院。由于在家出生，她从未获得过出生证明。
“这就是许多在吉姆·克劳时代出生的黑人不得不面临的问题，”她说。
加利福尼亚州的迫近对决
在民主党控制州政府的加利福尼亚州，一场关于一项拟议公投措施的斗争正在酝酿——该措施将推行选民身份证和公民身份核查要求。
选民身份证倡议的支持者最近宣布，他们已在请愿书上收集了超过130万个签名——远远超过了该州法律要求的近87.5万个签名——以将新的投票要求提交给11月的选民投票。
选举官员必须核实这些签名，才能将该倡议列入选票。加州共和党议员卡尔·德马约（Carl DeMaio）是选民身份证推动的主要支持者之一，他表示有信心这些签名将通过验证。
在加利福尼亚州，选民在投票站无需出示身份证明。2024年，州长加文·纽森（Gavin Newsom）——一位潜在的2028年总统候选人——签署了一项法律，禁止地方政府实施选民身份证要求，此前亨廷顿比奇市曾试图这样做。
对于邮寄投票（在加州广泛使用），选举官员必须核实选票信封上的签名与选举记录中的签名是否匹配。
该倡议将修改州宪法，要求选民在亲自投票时出示政府签发的身份证明。此外，邮寄投票的选民（在加州广泛使用）在返回选票时，必须在选民登记记录中提供其“唯一识别号码”的最后四位数字。
德马约领导的“改革加州”组织坚称，这些变化将使投票更容易，部分原因是选民的签名不再需要与文件中的签名匹配。（根据加州国务卿办公室的报告，在11月加州重新划界的特别选举中，超过8.3万张邮寄选票因缺少签名或签名与选举记录不符而被拒。那次选举中近1050万张邮寄选票被退回。）
德马约称，参加其组织焦点小组的人们欢迎这种替代签名匹配的方式。
南加州美国公民自由联盟高级律师朱莉娅·戈麦斯（Julia Gomez）则认为，当被要求在返回的选票上添加正确的四位数字时，选民同样容易出错。
“这只会增加选票不被计入的可能性，”她表示，其组织反对该公投措施。
该倡议还将要求选举官员核实登记选民是否为美国公民，并每年公开报告每个县无法确定公民身份的选民百分比。
尽管这些选民仍将留在选民名单上，德马约表示：“这将让公众非常清楚地看到，‘嘿，我所在的县有X%的选民档案无法核实公民身份。’”
民调显示美国人支持选民身份证和公民身份证明
在联邦选举中，非美国公民投票本身就是非法的，违者可能面临刑事指控和驱逐。
选举专家指出，非公民投票极为罕见。例如，去年佛罗里达州选举犯罪与安全办公室在1330万登记选民中发现“至少”198名可能的非公民，并将其中170人移交执法部门。
[相关文章] 明尼苏达州选民在选举日前往投票站，2025年11月4日。斯蒂芬·马图伦/盖蒂图片社/档案
与此同时，选民身份证和公民身份要求得到广泛支持。
皮尤研究中心2025年的一项调查显示，83%的美国人支持要求选民出示政府签发的身份证明。盖洛普2024年的一项类似调查显示，同样比例的人支持在首次登记投票时要求提供公民身份证明。
跟踪选举相关立法的投票权实验室表示，州层面提出的公民身份提案数量在2023年至2025年间几乎增加了两倍。该组织发现，截至今年，已有15个州提出了与联邦提案中公民身份证明要求相匹配的立法。
反对新要求的选民倡导者表示，剥夺合法选民权利的风险很高。
2024年，SSRS为倾向自由派的布伦南司法中心、VoteRiders和其他组织进行的一项调查显示，约9%的合格选民——估计超过2100万人——难以获得证明公民身份所需的文件，另有2%的人完全无法获得这些文件。
Republicans in a growing number of states press ahead with Trump’s voting rules
PUBLISHED Mar 11, 2026, 5:00 AM ET / By Fredreka Schouten
A growing number of Republican-led states are moving swiftly to implement new voting restrictions, plowing ahead on a key plank of President Donald Trump’s agenda that has so far been stuck on Capitol Hill.
Last week, Republican-controlled legislatures in Utah and South Dakota approved legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections. The measures now await action by governors.
On Wednesday, the state Senate in Florida — home to more than 13 million registered voters — is slated to take up a citizenship verification bill. A companion measure has already passed the Florida House.
Meanwhile, in states where Democrats control the levers of power, proponents of election-rule changes that Democrats oppose are working to enact them through ballot measures. That includes California, where a voter ID measure appears headed to the November ballot and will affect the state’s 23 million voters, if successful.
Those state efforts mean tens of millions of voters around the country could face new rules and restrictions in future elections, even if national legislation never moves forward.
Requiring individuals to provide citizenship documents when they register to vote and to present identification whenever they cast ballots are cornerstones of the proposed federal “SAVE America Act,” a top Trump priority.
The bill passed the US House last month, but it has bogged down in the US Senate, where Republicans hold the majority but do not have enough votes to overcome a filibuster from Democrats.
The president — who repeatedly makes baseless allegations that US elections are rife with fraud — has stepped up his rhetoric about the bill in recent days, saying he will refuse to sign any legislation until Congress enacts new voting rules. He’s also called for lawmakers to add more elements to the proposal, including ending no-excuse mail-in voting and banning transgender athletes in sports.
This week, the president suggested putting restrictions in place would help his party prevail in this fall’s high-stakes congressional elections. “It’ll guarantee the midterms,” he said Monday during a retreat of House Republicans at his golf club in Doral, Florida. “If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion.”
President Donald Trump speaks to House Republicans on March 9 in Doral, Florida.
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
Debate rages in Florida
Hundreds of miles north of Doral, Republicans in Tallahassee are ready to move forward on a key pillar of Trump’s voting agenda.
“While the important debate over the SAVE America Act happens on the national stage, we can and must continue to lead in Florida as the gold standard in election integrity,” state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a Republican who sponsored the Florida House bill, said during a recent committee debate.
The bill, which passed the Republican-controlled state House by an 83-31 vote last month, requires election officials to verify voters’ citizenship status with information already on file with the state.
Millions of Floridians already have provided citizenship documents to the state’s motor vehicle agency, to comply with Real ID requirements. Voters whose citizenship cannot be verified could eventually be removed from the rolls if they don’t provide proof of citizenship.
Persons-Mulicka said voters will be given multiple opportunities to demonstrate their eligibility before removal.
Opponents say the change will ensnare many voters in additional paperwork requirements — especially younger, first-time voters and disabled residents who might lack a driver’s license, along with older Floridians who may have given up their driver’s license years ago.
“Tens of thousands, if not more, US citizens who are seniors who are already registered will be removed or have to provide additional documentation to provide their citizenship,” said Brad Ashwell, Florida director of All Voting is Local, a voting rights group opposed to the measure.
During the recent floor debate, Miami-area state Rep. Ashley Gantt called the new requirements “effectively another poll tax.”
The Democrat said she has spent a year trying to obtain a birth certificate to help her elderly aunt renew her Florida’s driver’s license. Her aunt, she said, was born in 1950 in a small town in segregated South Carolina with no nearby Black hospital. And because she was born at home, she was never issued a birth certificate.
“This is what a lot of Black folks who were born during the Jim Crow era have to contend with,” she said.
Looming showdown in California
In California, where Democrats control state government, a battle is shaping up over a proposed ballot measure that would impose voter ID and citizenship verification requirements.
Proponents of the voter ID initiative recently announced they had collected more than 1.3 million signatures on petitions — far exceeding the nearly 875,000 required under state law — to put new voting requirements to voters on the November ballot.
Republican Assembly Member Carl DeMaio speaks at a press conference on July 16, 2025, in Sacramento to announce a campaign to require voter identification in California.
Tran Nguyen/AP
Election officials must verify the signatures before the initiative can be put on the ballot. State Assembly Member Carl DeMaio, a Republican who is one of the main proponents of the voter ID push, said he’s confident the signatures will be validated.
In California, there’s no requirement that voters produce identification at the polls. In 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom — a potential 2028 presidential contender — signed legislation that barred local governments from imposing voter ID, after the city of Huntington Beach sought to do so.
For ballots returned by mail, election officials must verify that the signature on the ballot envelope matches one in election records.
The initiative would change the state constitution to mandate that voters show government-issued identification each time they cast ballots in person. Additionally, those who vote by mail — a widely used option in California — would be required to include the last four digits of a “unique identifying number” on file in their voter registration records when they return their ballots.
DeMaio, who oversees a group called Reform California, insists the changes will make it easier to cast ballots, in part because voters’ signatures will no longer have to match those on file. (In November’s special election on redistricting in California, more than 83,000 mail-in ballots were rejected because they either lacked voters’ signatures or the signatures didn’t match in election records, according to a report by the California secretary of state’s office. Nearly 10.5 million mail-in ballots were returned in that election.)
DeMaio said people attending his organization’s focus groups welcomed an alternative to signature-matching.
Julia Gomez, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of South California, argues that voters could just as easily make mistakes when asked to add the correct four-digit number to their returned ballot.
“You are just opening up more opportunities for a ballot to not be counted,” said Gomez, whose organization opposes the ballot measure.
The initiative also would require election officials to verify whether registered voters are US citizens and to publicly report each year the percentage of voters in each county whose citizenship could not be determined.
While those voters will remain on the rolls, DeMaio said: “It will be quite apparent and transparent to the public, ‘Hey, I live in a county where X percent of our voter file has been not been verified for citizenship.’”
Americans back voter ID and proof of citizenship, polls show
It’s already illegal for people who are not US citizens to vote in federal elections, and violators face potential criminal charges and deportation.
Election experts note that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. Last year, for instance, Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security identified “at least” 198 likely noncitizens on the voter rolls out of 13.3 million registered voters. Officials said 170 of them were referred to law enforcement.
[Related article Minneapolis voters arrive at a polling place on Election Day, November 4, 2025. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images/File Despite Trump push for voter ID law, Senate Republicans say votes aren’t there to change filibuster rules 5 min read]
At the same time, voter ID and citizenship requirements are broadly popular.
Eighty-three percent of Americans backed requiring voters to show government-issued identification, Pew Research Center found in a 2025 survey. A similar share supported mandating proof of citizenship when individuals first register to vote in a 2024 Gallup poll.
In a sign of its growing currency, the number of citizenship proposals introduced at the state level nearly tripled between 2023 and 2025, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election-related legislation. So far this year, 15 states have introduced legislation that tracks with the proof-of-citizenship requirements in the federal proposal, the group found.
Voter advocates who oppose the new requirements say the risk of disenfranchising legitimate voters is high.
A 2024 survey conducted by SSRS for the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, VoteRiders and other groups showed that roughly 9% of eligible voters — estimated at more than 21 million people — would have a difficult time obtaining the required documents to prove their citizenship, and 2% lack access to them altogether.