Florida SB 90: Mail Ballots, Drop Boxes, and Drive Penalties

Florida SB 90, signed in 2021, rewrote the rules for voting by mail, ballot drop boxes, who can hand in someone else’s ballot, what counts as solicitation near a polling place, and how voter registration drives operate. A 2023 follow-up law, SB 7050, tightened several of those rules further. Federal courts blocked some provisions in 2022, but the Eleventh Circuit reversed nearly all of that ruling, so almost every SB 90 change is enforceable heading into 2026.

Vote-by-Mail Requests Expire Sooner and Require ID

A vote-by-mail request no longer carries across two general election cycles. It now covers elections only through the end of the calendar year of the next regularly scheduled general election.¹ Submit a request in 2025 and it lapses at the end of 2026. To keep receiving mail ballots after that, you file again.

Every request must include one of three identifiers: your Florida driver’s license number, your Florida ID card number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number. It has to match what the supervisor of elections already has on file. If your record has no number on file, the one you supply gets added.²

If an immediate family member or legal guardian asks for a ballot on your behalf, that person has to give their own name, address, ID number, and relationship to you. Written requests need the requester’s signature. Military and overseas voters covered by UOCAVA are exempt from the signed written request rule when the ballot goes to an address other than the one on file.¹

Drop Boxes Are Monitored and Limited to Election Office Hours

Ballot drop boxes can be placed only at the supervisor of elections’ office or at an early voting site. An employee of the supervisor’s office has to monitor each box in person the entire time it is open for ballot receipt. Unattended drop boxes are not permitted.

Because staff must be present, boxes are accessible only during the supervisor’s office hours or established early voting hours. A supervisor who lets a box operate outside those rules faces a $25,000 civil penalty for each violation.³ Practical result: drop box hours are shorter than what many counties offered in 2020.

Who Can Return a Completed Ballot

You can return your own ballot and ballots belonging to immediate family. State law defines that group specifically: a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling of the voter or the voter’s spouse.⁴

Outside that circle, you may not possess more than two other voters’ completed ballots per election. Collecting, delivering, or otherwise holding ballots past that limit is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.⁴ Under SB 90 as first written, this was a first-degree misdemeanor; the 2023 legislature raised it to a felony. A neighbor who offers to drop off ballots for several people on the block can cross the line without realizing it.

The 150-Foot No-Solicitation Zone

Within 150 feet of a polling place entrance, an early voting site, or a drop box location, no person, political committee, or organization may solicit voters. The statute reads solicitation broadly: asking for votes, handing out campaign material, polling, gathering petition signatures, selling anything, or any activity done with the intent to influence a voter.⁵

SB 90 also barred activity that had the “effect of influencing” a voter regardless of intent. The Eleventh Circuit agreed with the district court that this phrase was unconstitutionally vague and severed it from the statute.³ The rest of the rule stands.

Two exceptions apply inside the zone: employees or volunteers of the supervisor of elections can offer nonpartisan help to voters, including handing out water, and exit polling is allowed. Outside the zone, property owners cannot block candidates or their representatives from soliciting during polling hours.⁵

Voter Registration Drives Have 10 Days and Steep Per-Application Fines

SB 90 originally gave third-party voter registration organizations 14 days to deliver completed applications. SB 7050 cut that to 10 days, and the current statute reflects the shorter window.⁶

The fines run per day and per application:

Late delivery after 10 days: $50 per day for each application, up to $2,500 per application. A willful violation is $2,500 per application from the start.
Applications collected before book-closing but delivered after it: $100 per day for each application, up to $5,000 per application. Willful violations carry the full $5,000.

Fifty applications delivered a few days late can add up to tens of thousands of dollars.⁶

Registration organizations also have to give each applicant a receipt at the moment of collection. The receipt lists the applicant’s name, the date the application was received, the organization’s name, the registration agent’s name, the applicant’s party affiliation, and the county of residence.⁶

What Survived the Federal Challenge

A federal district judge struck down the drop box restrictions, the solicitation provision, and the voter registration delivery rules in March 2022, finding they violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.⁷

The Eleventh Circuit reversed almost all of that ruling. The drop box provision, the voter registration delivery deadline, and most of the solicitation provision were reinstated. The only piece that stayed blocked was the “effect of influencing a voter” phrase.³ For anyone voting, returning a ballot, or running a registration drive in Florida in 2026, the rules described above are the ones in force.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 101.62 – Request for Vote-by-Mail Ballots
2
Florida Senate. Florida Code 101.62 – Request for Vote-by-Mail Ballots
3
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Opinion, Case No. 22-11143
4
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 104.0616 – Vote-by-Mail Ballots and Voting
5
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 102.031 – Persons Allowed in Polling Rooms and Early Voting Areas
6
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 97.0575 – Third-Party Voter Registration Organizations
7
Common Cause Florida. Florida Voters Win Case Challenging Suppressive Voting Law as Judge Rules S.B. 90 Violates Voting Rights Act and U.S. Constitution