Florida Will Be the Only State in the Union to Protect Candidates’ Marriage Name Changes While Punishing their Voters

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Florida Will Be the Only State in the Union to Protect Candidates’ Marriage Name Changes While Punishing Women VotersFlorida candidate says election law protects office-seekers with marriage-related name changes while placing new burdens on everyday voters

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Francesca Yabraian, candidate for Florida House District 1, is calling for civil-rights review of Florida’s 2026 election legislation, HB 991 / SB 1334, arguing that the law creates a double standard between candidates and ordinary voters. In the enrolled bill, Florida carved out an explicit marriage-name-change exemption for candidates under s. 99.021, even while requiring voters whose legal names differ from the names on their citizenship documents to produce additional legal name-change documentation under s. 97.021(10).

Under the enrolled version of CS/CS/HB 991 (2026), Section 10, the candidate restriction does not apply to a name change in proceedings for dissolution of marriage or adoption of children, or to a change of name conducted with a marriage certificate. The same enrolled text also requires that if a voter registration applicant’s legal name differs from the name on the citizenship document, official legal documentation providing proof of legal name change is also required to count as acceptable evidence of citizenship.

Yabraian argues that this mismatch in treatment falls especially hard on married women, military families, military spouses, and other lawful voters whose records may span multiple states, agencies, or jurisdictions. She says Florida should not protect candidates whose names changed through marriage while forcing everyday voters with the same type of lawful name change to clear additional paperwork hurdles.

Yabraian says the burden is not theoretical. In many Florida counties, obtaining a certified marriage record still carries a direct cost and a real delay. A basic certified marriage record often starts at about $3 before postage under the common clerk fee structure. Some counties have modernized and offer faster digital access, but that access is inconsistent. Palm Beach, for example, offers immediate electronic certified copies of marriage licenses for $8 plus a 3.5% processing fee. Miami-Dade charges $9 for the first certified copy and offers paid faster mailing options that raise the total cost to $21 by Priority Mail or $43 by Express Mail for one copy.

For many voters, however, the default is still ordinary mail. That means a paper request must be mailed to the clerk and then mailed back to the voter, turning what sounds like a minor paperwork requirement into a process that can take one to two weeks for a civilian requester once mailing and clerk handling time are factored in. For military families stationed overseas, the same request can take two to four weeks or more, especially when APO/FPO delivery times are involved. Yabraian argues that this makes the law’s burden not just documentary, but also financial, logistical, and time-sensitive.

In her complaint, Yabraian wrote that ordinary voters may face delays, additional costs, confusion, and barriers to timely voter registration and ballot counting, while candidates received a marriage-certificate carveout.

In her complaint, Francesca Yabraian wrote that she directly challenged Rep. Michelle Salzman over the bill’s treatment of lawful name changes. “I will challenge your candidacy, arguing you are disqualified from running for office under state law,” she wrote. “This is not a threat — it is accountability.” She added, “You cannot claim to fight for voters while backing legislation that punishes women like yourself and countless others.”

Yabraian also wrote that the amendment to the candidate provision deserves scrutiny because of the sequence of events leading up to it. She wrote that after she sent letters raising the issue directly, the timing and substance of the amendment were consistent with the concerns she raised publicly, while acknowledging that she could not prove legislative motive.

Yabraian argues that the constitutional problem in the law is clear, and that any

Floridian who understands basic constitutional rights could reach the same conclusion. She notes that outside experts have raised similar concerns about laws that burden women voters whose current legal names no longer match the names on their birth certificates. “Every move, every party affiliation change … and these women would be required to go with all of their documentation every single time,” said Greta Bedekovics, associate director of Democracy Policy at the Center for American Progress. The American Civil Liberties Union likewise warned that matching-document requirements could threaten the voting rights of “as many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name but whose birth certificate does not match,” calling them “burdensome documentation” requirements.

Yabraian says the issue is not merely technical. She argues that requiring additional legal paperwork when a voter’s current legal name differs from the name on a citizenship document can mean delays, added costs, confusion, and barriers to timely voter registration and ballot counting. “The problem is not just the paperwork itself,” Yabraian said. “It is the fact that Florida chose to protect candidates with marriage-based name changes while leaving ordinary voters to pay the fees, wait on the records, and carry the burden themselves.”

She is asking for review of whether HB 991 / SB 1334 creates unequal treatment between candidates and voters with lawful marriage-related name changes, whether it disproportionately affects married women and military families, whether the added cost and delay of obtaining supporting records creates an avoidable burden on political participation, and whether the law raises broader equal-protection and ballot-access concerns.

The added costs, delays, and unequal treatment built into this law are exactly why it is unconstitutional.

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