Senate Bill 7050 recently passed in the Florida legislature and will now increase scrutiny for third-party voter registration organizations.

The bill bans non-citizens and convicted felons that haven’t paid their court fees from registering people to vote, but they can hand out basic information.

If an organization is caught breaking the rules or getting registration paperwork wrong, an organization can face hefty fines of over $50,000. 

Third-party voter registration groups have been around for years, and some organizations see this as the state attempting to discourage these groups from getting people to register. 

The League of Women Voters has been registering people to vote for 100 years, and officials with the group say they worry it will deter people from volunteering.

Robin Davidov is with the organization and says volunteers are the backbone of their operation.

“We rely on volunteers, and they do this out of the goodness of their hearts. And now they are reading about fines and fees,” Davidov said. 

The law also requires voters to request a mail-in ballot 12 days before an election and bans local supervisors of elections from mailing out a ballot within 10 days of an election. 

Republican Sen. Danny Burgess was a co-sponsor and says it increases accountability for third-party voter registration groups.

“Some of the bad actors we’re uncovering in investigations, they look at these fines as ultimately being the cost of business,” Burgess said. 

The law will go into effect on July 1.