Voter identification and congressional redistricting stand chief among concerns voiced by advocacy organizations in the state as the 2026 legislative session gets underway. 

Members of 11 organizations gathered to respond to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ State of the State address, delivered Tuesday. 

Genesis Robinson, director of Equal Ground, a Black-led, nonpartisan group working to build Black political power in the state, called the organizations “united as democracy-defense organizations.” 

The groups included Equal Ground, the NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, Common Cause Florida, the American Civil Liberties Union, Justice Over Everything, League of Women Voters, Florida Watch, and Black Voters Matter. 

“What we heard was a lame duck governor who is singularly focused on control,” Robinson said. 

The expanse of his control has been a “power grab,” Robinson said, to establish redrawn congressional maps, “aggressive voter suppression, attacks on local governance, and attempts to erase long-standing protections that exist for our democracy.”

More than 1 million Floridians will not have representation in one of the two chambers in the statehouse this legislative session as Gov. Ron DeSantis has slow-walked setting special elections to fill four vacant seats between the House and Senate.

As the regular legislative session kicks off Tuesday, three state House seats and one state Senate seat – all formerly held by Republicans – remain vacant. That leaves an estimated 1.08 million Florida residents without an elected representative in the respective chambers, according to state population data, at a time when lawmakers are considering redrawing the state’s congressional voting maps and proposals that would drastically reduce local property tax revenues. 

The vacant districts span some of Florida’s most populous and fastest growing communities, including portions of Hernando, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Sumter Counties in central and south Florida. 

DeSantis’ tendency to delay calling special elections has come under fire for years, and the reasons behind the delays remain mysterious. Partisan politics alone doesn’t explain it: the current vacancies were previously held by Republicans, some in seats that are not expected to be competitive. 

Floridians in those communities have been without an elected official since last fall, after sitting lawmakers resigned to run for other offices or take other positions. Under previous governors, those vacancies would have triggered routine and speedy special elections.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla — A bill, whose sponsor says will strengthen election security in Florida, was filed last week to be considered for the incoming legislative session in Tallahassee.

State representative Berny Jacques (R-59) announced on Jan. 5 his new proposal. 

The bill says that, if approved during the legislative session, it would authorize the supervisor of elections “to verify citizenship status for new voter registration applications,” according to the representative’s announcement.

Also, according to the representative, the bill would authorize removing citizens from the voter registry who obtain a driver’s license in another state.

The bill also includes a measure that would add an “NC” designation to the back of a state-issued driver’s license and would require that a potential voter who presents an ID with that designation get a provisional ballot until they can provide proof of citizenship.

Rep. Jacques added that the bill was designed to reinforce security during elections in Florida by ensuring that only citizens can vote in the elections.

“Through verification of citizenship of new voters, non-citizen designations on state-issued identification, and an up-to-date voter registry, Florida’s elections will be more secure than ever before,” the representative added through the press release.

The United States could be headed toward the largest-ever decline in representation by Black members of Congress, depending on how the Supreme Court rules in a closely watched redistricting case about the Voting Rights Act.

For decades, the landmark law that came out of the Civil Rights Movement has protected the collective voting power of racial minorities when political maps are redrawn. Its provisions have also boosted the number of seats in the House of Representatives filled by Black lawmakers.

That’s largely because in many Southern states — where voting is often polarized between a Republican-supporting white majority and a Democratic-supporting Black minority — political mapmakers have drawn a certain kind of district to get in line with the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 provisions. In these districts, racial-minority voters make up a population large enough to have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidates.

But at an October hearing last year for the redistricting case about Louisiana’s congressional map, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared inclined to issue this year another in a series of decisions that have weakened the Voting Rights Act — this time its Section 2 protections in redistricting.

That kind of ruling could put at risk at least 15 House districts currently represented by a Black member of Congress, an NPR analysis has found. Each of those districts has a sizable racial-minority population, is in a state where Republican lawmakers control redistricting and, for now at least, is likely protected by Section 2. Factoring in newly redrawn districts in Missouri and Texas, which were not included in NPR’s analysis, could raise the tally of at-risk districts higher.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he plans to call a special session in April for the Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional districts, joining a redistricting arms race among states that have redrawn districts mid-decade.

Even though Florida’s 2026 legislative session starts next week, DeSantis said he wanted to wait for a possible ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling in Louisiana v. Callais could determine whether Section 2, a part of the Voting Rights Act that bars discrimination in voting systems, is constitutional. The governor said “at least one or two” districts in Florida could be affected by the high court’s ruling.

“I don’t think it’s a question of if they’re going to rule. It’s a question of what the scope is going to be,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Steinhatchee, Florida. “So, we’re getting out ahead of that.”

Currently, 20 of Florida’s 28 congressional seats are held by Republicans.

Congressional districts in Florida that are redrawn to favor Republicans could carry big consequences for President Donald Trump’s plan to reshape congressional districts in GOP-led states, which could give Republicans a shot at winning additional seats in the midterm elections and retaining control of the closely divided U.S. House.

Join us Wednesday, August 6 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. ET for food, music and joyful resistance! We are gathering to claim our power and celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act!

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was signed into law on August 6, 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. We are coming together to celebrate the protections it promised and empower each other as the fight for a free and fair democracy continues. As the Voting Rights Act and many of our most valued freedoms continue to be attacked at the state and national level, join us as we counter fear and repression with joy and collective strength.

Where: Callahan Neighborhood Center
101 N. Parramore Ave.
Orlando, Florida 32801

When: 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

A pending ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the 1965 Voting Rights Act could trigger the Florida Legislature to conduct a mid-decade congressional redistricting effort, but it won’t require them to do so.

That was the opinion of Tallahassee election attorney Andy Bardos, who spoke Wednesday before a Florida House select committee charged with considering congressional redistricting, the second “educational and informative meeting” in the past week that did not allow public comment.

Denying that redistricting would have anything to do with partisan advantage, Gov. Ron DeSantis has maintained that Florida will be “forced to” redistrict once the high court rules in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, which could redefine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or declare it unconstitutional. The justices have twice heard the case and are expected to rule sometime before next July.

“In terms of binding effect, it has binding effect on Louisiana,” Bardos told lawmakers. “Whether Florida chooses after Callais to keep its maps in place, await either the next cycle, or await litigation, or redraw its districts, that will be a judgement call made when we see the Callais decision.”

Bardos and committee chairman Mike Redondo, R-Miami, confirmed during the hearing that if the Legislature does in fact redo the congressional map sometime next year, it would do so based on U.S. Census and voter information data they used previously when it did the decennial redistricting in 2022.

The Florida House Redistricting select committee met for the second time Wednesday.

Conversations around the effort continue to be centered on President Donald Trump pushing Republicans across the country to redraw congressional maps ahead of the midterms. But it’s against Florida’s constitution to create maps for partisan reasons.

Orlando Democratic Representative Bruce Antone asked a redistricting expert presenting to the committee about those perceptions.
“There’s been some statements made that if we redraw districts, they are intended to favor a particular party. What are your thoughts on that, as we talk about the potential for redistricting this time around?” he asked.
The chair of the committee, Republican Representative Mike Redondo, shut that question down.

“We’re talking about statements by unknown folks and hypotheticals. Let’s try and keep it to the presentation if we can, terms of questions,” he said.

The committee has also not allowed public comment so far in either meeting. Abdelilah Skhir, a policy strategist with the ACLU of Florida, said that’s unusual.

The redrawing of states’ congressional districts typically happens only once per decade, following the release of new U.S. Census data. But we’re now up to six states that have enacted new congressional maps for the 2026 midterms; that’s more than in any election cycle not immediately following a census since 1983-84. Even more are expected to join the fray before voters head to the polls next year. Ultimately, more than a third of districts nationwide could be redrawn, threatening to confuse and disenfranchise voters. 

The truly unusual thing, though, is that four of those states passed new maps totally voluntarily. Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina all redrew their districts after President Donald Trump urged them to create more safe seats for Republicans to help the GOP maintain control of the House of Representatives next year, and California did so in order to push back against Trump and create more safe seats for Democrats. (The other two states redrew for more anodyne reasons: Utah’s old map was thrown out in court, and Ohio’s was always set to expire after the 2024 election.) To put that in perspective, only two states voluntarily redistricted in total in the 52 years from 1973 to 2024, according to the Pew Research Center.

So the current “redistricting wars” are truly unprecedented in modern politics — and that’s had some chaotic consequences. In Texas, for instance, voter advocacy groups sued over the new map, arguing that it discriminated against Black and Latino voters. They scored a temporary win on Nov. 18 when a panel of federal judges struck down the new map and reinstated the old one. That ruling, though, came less than three weeks before Texas’ Dec. 8 filing deadline, sending candidates and election officials scrambling to readjust their plans.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s Republican-controlled House officially kicked off the first meeting of its select committee on congressional redistricting Thursday, as the state becomes the latest to consider redrawing electoral maps amid a partisan battle for every edge in next year’s midterm elections.

But the prospect of mid-decade redistricting in President Donald Trump’s adopted home state remains uncertain, with the top Republican on the committee stopping short of committing to draft new maps and appearing to draw a deeper divide among his party’s leaders on how the process should move forward. 

Republican state Rep. Mike Redondo, who chairs the committee, cemented his chamber’s commitment to consider redistricting during Florida’s regular session, which runs from Jan. 13 to March 13 — saying it would be “irresponsible” to wait until next spring, as the GOP-controlled state Senate and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis have called for.

“It would be irresponsible to the citizens of Florida,” to delay the process, Redondo said.

The national wave of redistricting efforts was instigated by Trump, who hopes to buck the historical trend of the president’s party losing seats in midterms, and his allies are wagering that Florida could yield three to five more seats for Republicans. Each seat is crucial, because Democrats need a net gain of just three to control the chamber.

Voter rights organizations and representatives of Florida’s minority communities urged Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature to abandon their idea of redrawing congressional districts in response to President Trump’s demand.

The state House’s redistricting committee is set to hold its first meeting Dec. 4. DeSantis this week reiterated his call for lawmakers to recast boundaries, saying a special session this spring might be needed to accomplish the task.

But any effort by GOP leaders to intentionally create more districts crafted to elect Republicans is a clear violation of state law, opponents said at a Dec. 2 news conference in the Capitol.

“Rigging maps (has) no place in a free and fair democratic society,” said Genesis Robinson, executive director of the Equal Ground Education Fund, a voting rights organization. “We do not want politicians choosing their voters.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida voters and advocates rallied at the capitol hoping to plea with lawmakers in an effort to stop any further action to redraw the state’s congressional maps mid-decade. 

This comes as House members are set to meet for the first time to debate the issue in a matter of days.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has been teasing a possible special session for months now, telling folks to “stay tuned” as everyone awaits Florida’s stake in the redistricting fight. However, there’s a continue push to halt any further plans to redraw congressional maps.

“I think it would be appropriate to do a redistricting here in the mid-decade,” said DeSantis, when asked whether he plans to call a special session on the matter.

DeSantis has been direct with his take on redistricting, saying he even believes Florida deserves extra seats on capitol hill.

Those against any attempt to redraw congressional maps point to the Fair District’s Amendment. Back in 2010, 63% of voters voted to end partisan map drawing, which voting rights groups say is exactly what President Donald Trump is calling for.

The nationwide redistricting arms race is growing increasingly unpredictable. Courts are knocking down maps. Republicans are breaking with President Trump. Democrats are finding new states where they will try to pick up seats.

But there is one constant that will soon define the final contours of the redistricting battle: the calendar.

States have clear filing deadlines for candidates to get on the ballot for primary elections. Legislatures have the ability to change both these deadlines and the dates of the primaries — many did in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. If state legislators decided to take the highly partisan route of a mid-decade gerrymander instead of waiting for the regular assessment that happens every 10 years, they would probably be more than willing to also pass a law moving the dates and deadlines before a planned redistricting session.

But once these deadlines have passed, they are very difficult to undo; there is little known modern precedent for a legislature to throw out already cast votes in a primary election because an opportunity to draw a more partisan map has arisen. And creating a new filing deadline for candidates could cause significant confusion, invite litigation and overburden already overworked and underfunded election officials.

A state appeals court has overturned the conviction of Nathan Hart, one of the first Floridians arrested by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ election police unit in 2022, ruling that state prosecutors never had proper authority for the case.

The Second District Court of Appeal found that the Office of Statewide Prosecution (OSP) lacked jurisdiction to charge Hart because his alleged crimes occurred only in Hillsborough County, not across multiple judicial circuits as the law required at the time. Judges reversed his conviction for falsely affirming that he was eligible to vote during the 2020 presidential election and ordered the case dismissed.

Hart, of Gibsonton, was among 19 people arrested in 2022 during a sweep that DeSantis touted as a crackdown on voter fraud. The arrests followed creation of the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which was established following claims by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that widespread voter fraud marred the 2020 election.

Hart was among defendants who registered to vote after Florida voters approved a 2018 constitutional amendment automatically restoring voting rights for many felons who had completed their sentences. The amendment, however, excluded people convicted of murder or sexual offenses.

Like many others across the nation, people gathered outside the Duval County Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 18, 2025, to send a message: No Kings. People played music and danced. Kids found space to throw a football. People ran into old friends. 

“What really stood out to me was how much fun it was. I mean, people were enjoying themselves. You had people in frog costumes and other things. You had some pretty funny signs,” says Larry Hannan, communications and policy director for State Voices Florida, who attended the No Kings rally outside the courthouse in Jacksonville. 

Hannan, who also attended the first iteration of No Kings back in June, estimated a 50 percent increase in attendance. Jacksonville’s protest mirrored other mobilizations across the country. On Sept. 18, it’s estimated that 7 million people turned out at 2,700 No Kings events. 

The protests come in response to the Trump administration’s increasingly authoritarian actions as Trump approaches the end of his first year in office. During his first 10 months back in the White House, Trump has weaponized federal agencies against the American people.

Like many others across the nation, people gathered outside the Duval County Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 18, 2025, to send a message: No Kings. People played music and danced. Kids found space to throw a football. People ran into old friends. 

“What really stood out to me was how much fun it was. I mean, people were enjoying themselves. You had people in frog costumes and other things. You had some pretty funny signs,” says Larry Hannan, communications and policy director for State Voices Florida, who attended the No Kings rally outside the courthouse in Jacksonville. 

Hannan, who also attended the first iteration of No Kings back in June, estimated a 50 percent increase in attendance. Jacksonville’s protest mirrored other mobilizations across the country. On Sept. 18, it’s estimated that 7 million people turned out at 2,700 No Kings events. 

The protests come in response to the Trump administration’s increasingly authoritarian actions as Trump approaches the end of his first year in office. During his first 10 months back in the White House, Trump has weaponized federal agencies against the American people.

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Thursday directing the federal government to investigate and dismantle “domestic terrorism networks.”

The move appears targeted at  left-leaning progressive nonprofit groups, which Trump days ago vowed to dismantle, falsely claiming they fund and support political violence and terrorism in the U.S.

The memo directs the FBI’s National Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to go after “anti-fascist”  movements in the U.S.

“This ‘anti-fascist’ lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties,” the memo reads.

Trump signed the memo shortly after the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice directed several U.S. attorneys offices across the country to open investigations into the Open Society Foundations, a progressive grant network founded by Democratic megadonor George Soros.

Dear Mayor Deegan, Sheriff Waters, & Chief Administrative Officer Bowling,

As voting rights organizations, we respectfully request that the City of Jacksonville provide free parking within one block of the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office during early voting and on election day for all future elections. We propose making parking free along East Monroe Street and East Duval Street between Ocean Street and Newnan Street, and ideally expanding to North Laura Street through North Market Street.

Covering the surrounding parking meters near this key voting location with “Voter Parking Only” during early voting and on election day will directly improve voter access and confidence in our local elections. The downtown Supervisor of Elections Office is not only a centrally recognized hub for voting, but it’s also the go-to location for voters who are unsure of their polling site, need to resolve issues, prefer to drop off their vote-by-mail ballot, or are seeking to cast a provisional ballot. Additionally, this downtown office is where many of our organizations bring community members during ‘Souls to the Polls’ and other civic engagement events. 

Providing free parking for voters is a good practice that other cities in Florida already offer. As you can see in the included photo below, the City of Saint Petersburg offers free parking for its downtown Supervisor of Elections office by covering its parking meters with red sleeves during early voting and on election day.

Join us Wednesday, August 6 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. ET for food, music and joyful resistance! We are gathering to claim our power and celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act!

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was signed into law on August 6, 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. We are coming together to celebrate the protections it promised and empower each other as the fight for a free and fair democracy continues. As the Voting Rights Act and many of our most valued freedoms continue to be attacked at the state and national level, join us as we counter fear and repression with joy and collective strength.

Where: Callahan Neighborhood Center
101 N. Parramore Ave.
Orlando, Florida 32801

When: 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

It looks like the Florida African-American Heritage Preservation Network won’t receive funding in the state budget.

The latest Senate offer on Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development zeroes out $800,000 set aside by the upper chamber for the effort. The House never budgeted money for the purpose, and it appears to have fallen victim to extended budget negotiations.

Of note, the Senate proposal had grown from just under $600,000 up to $800,000 before falling prey to the budget ax.

Sen. Rosalind Osgood, a Broward Democrat, had pursued that larger dollar amount in a local funding project request.

“The specific purpose is to serve the 30 network museums/sites that will receive direct grants from the FAAHPN network to help support their historical and cultural programming, technology upgrades, internship programs, heritage tourism, and serve the general public,” reads the application.

Equal Ground is hosting community forums via a tour to educate the public about what went down at this year’s Florida legislative session.

The tour started on June 7 in Tampa. Stops are scheduled through Aug. 16; the last one is scheduled in the Panhandle.

Stops were made in Volusia County last week at Greater Union First Baptist Church in DeLand on June 9 and at the Center for Civic Engagement on the campus of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach a day earlier.

“The meetings were well received. 

We desire to have more turnout; however, we had over 50 people at both stops in Volusia County. We are just educating people on the laws that were passed and those that didn’t, said Genesis Robinson, executive director of Equal Ground.

“We want to update the people. We want people to understand these laws and how these laws impact their lives.’’

Equal Ground is grassroots, Black-led political action organization focusing on voter information, voter education, voter registration and political action.

An unfortunate reality the city must face after the death of Councilmember Gwen Henderson is having a special election to fill her seat. Per the Charter, with more than 15 months until the end of the term, an election is required. Inside the 15 months, the remaining council members chose the successor. 

Hillsborough County’s Supervisor of Elections has set the dates, with the election scheduled for Sept. 9 with early voting Sept. 4-7. If no candidate breaks 50%, a runoff election will be held Oct. 28. If you want to vote in either of those elections you must be registered to vote by Aug. 11.

As for candidates, qualifying period is Aug. 11-15, with pre-qualifying starting July 28. In order to be eligible “Candidates shall have been a resident of the City of Tampa for one year immediately preceding the commencement of the term of office and shall also have been a resident of their district for six months immediately preceding the commencement of their term of office.”

Additionally, to appear on the ballot, a candidate must either pay a qualifying fee of $4,511.52 or collect 1008 signatures and pay $0.10 per signature for verification. (The state does provide an option to file an undue burden affidavit if you can’t afford that cost.) The signatures must be registered voters in District 5 and the number is derived from a formula that requires 0.25% of the City of Tampa population. The supervisor used census data of 403,361 persons, according to the ACS 1Y2023.

In North Carolina, it was a lawsuit over the state’s voter registration records. In Arizona and Wisconsin, it was a letter to state election officials warning of potential administrative violations. And in Colorado, it was a demand for election records going back to 2020.

Those actions in recent weeks by the U.S. Department of Justice’s voting section may seem focused on the technical machinery of how elections are run but signal deeper changes when combined with the departures of career attorneys and decisions to dropvarious voting rights cases.

They represent a shift away from the division’s traditional role of protecting access to the ballot box. Instead, the actions address concerns that have been raised by a host of conservative activists following years of false claims surrounding elections in the U.S. Some voting rights and election experts also note that by targeting certain states — presidential battlegrounds or those controlled by Democrats — the moves could be foreshadowing an expanded role for the department in future elections.

David Becker, a former department attorney who worked on voting rights cases and now leads the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the Justice Department’s moves represent a departure from focusing on major violations of federal law.

A possible proposal by the Miami Commission to shift municipal elections from odd- to even-numbered years — effectively extending current officials’ terms by a year — has drawn threat of legal action from one of the city’s mayoral candidates.

In an email, candidate Michael Hepburn warned Mayor Francis Suarez and the Commission’s four current members against pursuing the change. If they insist on doing so, he said he would tap civil rights lawyer Ben Crump “and others to bring a lawsuit against this action and the city.”

The potential election change, first flagged by Tess Riski of the Miami Herald last month, would delay the scheduled November 2025 city elections to 2026, granting Suarez and Commissioners Joe Carollo and Christine King an additional year in office.

Commissioners Miguel Gabela and Damian Pardo, meanwhile, would stay in office until November 2028 rather than November 2027.

Donald Trump has made false claims about voter fraud central to his political identity and issued a sweeping anti-voting executive order in March. Now he’s weaponizing the Justice Department to advance his voter suppression agenda.

On Tuesday, in its first major voting-related lawsuit, the Trump Justice Department sued the state of North Carolina over its voter rolls, reviving arguments that Republican judicial candidate Jefferson Griffin used to try to throw out tens of thousands of ballots in an effort to overturn the victory of Democratic North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs.

“It’s no accident they’ve chosen a case in which the Republican candidate lost and they’re echoing his exact claims,” says Chiraag Bains, who served as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Joe Biden and as a senior counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from 2010 to 2017.

The Justice Department claims that North Carolina violated the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by failing to collect voters’ driver’s license or Social Security numbers when they registered. Griffin challenged the eligibility of more than 60,000 voters who he claimed fell into that category, even though all of those voters showed identification when they cast a ballot and his legal team never presented a single instance of a someone voting improperly.

Some Republican-led states are moving to require voters to prove their citizenship, as Texas advances a controversial measure that could make it harder for eligible voters to get on the rolls because of changed names, mislaid paperwork or database errors.

Voting rights advocates and Democrats warn the plans could prove particularly tricky for people who change their names, including women who do so when they get married or divorced, because their legal names don’t match the ones on their birth certificates. Supporters call the criticism overblown, saying most Americans can readily show they are citizens.

The emerging laws are part of a GOP push led by President Donald Trump to tighten requirements to cast ballots. Voting by noncitizens is both illegal and rare, and the attempts to crack down on voting by foreigners could drive down participation from a much larger pool of legitimate voters, according to election experts.

The Texas legislation passed the state Senate last month, and Republican proponents are hoping to advance the bill through the House by next week as the legislative session wraps up. As two dozen other states consider similar measures, Texas Republicans are weighing whether to change their proposal to more smoothly accommodate name changes, according to people tracking the legislation. The political fight in the state illuminates a larger debate across the country over how to balance election security and access to the ballot.

TALLAHASSEE — “Fear and uncertainty” about a new law targeting the state’s ballot initiative process has led to a significant drop in people working to collect signatures for 2026 ballot measures, groups challenging the law told a federal judge on Thursday.

One of the most controversial parts of the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature on May 2 and immediately signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, shortens from 30 to 10 days the length of time to submit signed petitions to supervisors of elections.

In addition, the law includes hefty fines for petitions that are filed late and makes it a felony for petition gatherers to retain voters’ personal information on petitions or make changes to completed petitions. Groups accused of “substantial irregularities” in the petition process could face racketeering charges.

Florida Decides Healthcare, a committee sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at expanding Medicaid coverage, quickly filed the lawsuit this month to challenge parts of the law. Smart & Safe Florida, a committee behind a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational marijuana, also is a plaintiff in the case. A similar marijuana proposal narrowly failed to pass in November, and the committee is trying to go back to voters in 2026.