Secretary of State outlines 2026 election preparations, pre-certification audits and SAVE access

Secretary of State Cord Byrd told the Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections on Nov. 1, 2025, that the Department of State is preparing for the 2026 general election cycle with an emphasis on transparency, security and intergovernmental data sharing.

"Elections administration is a full time year round job even in the, off election years," Byrd said, noting he has visited newly elected supervisors of elections and reviewed county operations. Byrd said 13 new supervisors took office since 2024 and he is meeting with each to ensure they have state resources.

Byrd described the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which investigates potential violations of the election code and forwards probable-cause findings to law enforcement for charging decisions. "If laws are important enough to be on the books, they're important enough to be enforced," he said, and he reported cooperation with federal partners on initiative-petition and noncitizen-voting investigations.

The department proposed a grant program to help smaller counties adopt technology that supports 100% pre-certification audits of every race. Byrd said more than half of Florida counties already use systems that permit broader pre-certification; bringing all 67 counties onto compatible systems would allow audits to occur before races are certified, which he said improves judicial review opportunities without removing any candidate right to challenge results in court.

Byrd discussed access to the SAVE database for citizenship verification. He said Florida obtained broader access and federal cooperation that allows bulk uploads and the provision of SAVE data at no charge; the department is seeking additional federal rule changes that would permit states to perform pre-checks prior to adding registrants to the rolls. Byrd also described memorandums of understanding with several neighboring states and Ohio to share voter data for cross-checking duplicate registrations while working around differing state privacy laws.

Byrd addressed driver's-license number randomization and said supervisors coordinated with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to verify records; he told the committee no one was denied the right to vote in 2024 because of new driver's-license numbers but proposed making the match process more seamless.

On chain of custody and security, Byrd said he has visited each of Florida's 67 supervisors of elections to review secure rooms and procedures and that supervisors' offices have the auditable processes the department expects. He supported ongoing transparency, including encouraging legislators and the public to visit county offices to review procedures.

Senators asked about special elections (which the governor calls), prosecutions stemming from election-crime investigations (state attorneys and law enforcement decide charges) and the timeline for restoration-of-rights determinations for returning citizens; Byrd said the department has a 90-day processing window for completed applications and would facilitate training and federal coordination as needed.

Why it matters: The Department of State's plans for pre-certification audits, expanded data sharing and SAVE access could change how registrants' citizenship status is checked and how counties conduct audits before certification. Those proposals have operational and budget implications for supervisors of elections and potential legal implications if federal rules or court challenges change the underlying constraints.

Byrd asked the committee to consider a grant program to help fiscally constrained counties acquire audit technology and to support statutory or administrative changes that would make record-matching and verification more automatic.