The state of Florida may remove thousands of voters from the county roll who registered to vote but are suspected of not being U.S. citizens.
To combat the problem, Christina White, the Miami-Dade Deputy Supervisor of Elections, said the Florida Division of Elections has a new system in place to verify voter eligibility.
“What they are doing is providing those names to the counties, and then our role in the process is to notify these voters and have them provide the proof that’s necessary to show their citizenship,” she said.
State officials say the list is drawn from people who have driver's licenses but do not appear to be citizens. There are about 11 million registered voters in Florida, but about 2,600 throughout the state and 1,700 from Miami-Dade County are suspected of not being citizens.
“We should keep it in perspective,” said White. “It's only 1,700 voters from 1.2 million, but of course we want our voter rolls to be as accurate as possible and ensure only eligible voters are able to cast a ballot.”
Florida residents are asked about their citizenship status on their voter registration applications. Falsely checking the box is committing a felony.
