CANDIDATE FILING FEES (Section 115.357)

Under current law, candidates for certain offices are required to pay a filing fee to the respective committee of the political party whose nomination the candidate is seeking and such fee may be paid either directly to the treasurer of the committee or to the office that is responsible for accepting the candidate's declaration of candidacy. This act stipulates that candidates required to file the declaration of candidacy with the Secretary of State shall pay the fee directly to the respective political party committee.

This provision is identical to a provision in the truly agreed to CCS/SCS/SB 631 (2020), HCS/SB 552 (2020), HCS/SB 587 (2020), SB 818 (2020), and HCS/HB 269 (2019) and substantially similar to a provision in SB 221 (2019).

VOTER IDENTIFICATION (Section 115.427)

Under current law, any person seeking to vote in a public election must provide a certain form of identification, provided that any person lacking such identification can vote without such a form of identification through the execution of a statement under the penalty of perjury averring, among other things, that the person is who they say they are. This act repeals the provision allowing persons to vote through execution of the statement under penalty of perjury. The act additionally creates new provisions governing the use of provisional ballots in the case of persons who do not possess the proper form of identification in order to vote.

The act repeals a provision requiring the Secretary of State to provide advance notice of the identification requirements for voting in elections as well as a provision requiring all costs associated with the implementation of the voter identification law to be reimbursed from the general revenue by an appropriation for that purpose.

These provisions are identical to provisions in HCS/SB 552 (2020) and substantially similar to provisions in SB 818 (2020).

SCOTT SVAGERA