Republicans are introducing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, a practice that is already illegal in federal elections and occurs infrequently. This move aligns with former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2024 election results if he is not successful.
This week, House Republicans are set to vote on a bill that would reverse a District of Columbia law permitting noncitizens to vote in local elections. They argue that this step is necessary to prevent Democrats from expanding this practice to other areas. Additionally, they are promoting another bill that would mandate states to verify citizenship, such as through a birth certificate or passport, when registering individuals to vote.
While the likelihood of these bills becoming law is minimal, they serve to amplify Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud. They highlight the Republican Party’s embrace of a baseless narrative that accuses Democrats of intentionally allowing illegal migrants into the U.S. in order to diminish American citizens’ voting power and secure electoral wins for themselves.
Speaker Mike Johnson recently stood alongside Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago to announce a commitment to crack down on migrants entering the country, insinuating without evidence that they were doing so to vote for President Biden.
“There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system — and that is the threat of noncitizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections,” Mr. Johnson cautioned at a recent press conference outside the Capitol.
However, he admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim.
“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable,” Mr. Johnson acknowledged. “We don’t have that number.”
In reality, the known estimates are extremely low; a national survey revealed that around 30 noncitizens were suspected of voting in the 2016 election.
“They don’t provide any evidence of actual fraudulent attempts by non-U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections,” stated Representative Joseph D. Morelle of New York, the leading Democrat on the Administration Committee. “So it quickly becomes apparent that this is merely a pretext. They are once again challenging the election results and they need a justification.”
Concerns about noncitizens voting in American elections have existed since the 1800s, but they have escalated during the Trump administration. Shortly after taking office in 2017, Mr. Trump falsely claimed during a meeting with congressional leaders that he would have won the popular vote against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if not for the three to five million illegal immigrants who voted for her.
Following his defeat in the 2020 election, there was minimal evidence of noncitizens voting, prompting Mr. Trump and his allies to largely avoid the topic as they sought to overturn the election results. Instead, they raised various other grievances, such as the use of drop boxes and mail-in voting during the pandemic. They also promoted debunked conspiracy theories involving hacked voting machines, deceased individuals voting in large numbers, and foreign interference in the election.
After previously exaggerating the risk of illegal voting by noncitizens in past elections, Republicans argue that the situation has changed. They claim that the influx of undocumented immigrants into the country has increased the likelihood of such occurrences, and even a small number of illegal votes could sway a presidential election.
The bill scheduled for a vote this week, introduced by Representative August Pfluger of Texas, would revoke a D.C. law enacted in 2022 that permits noncitizens to vote in local elections. Several municipalities, including towns in Maryland and California, allow noncitizens to participate in local elections, particularly for school boards where their children are enrolled.
Representative Bryan Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin and the chair of the Administration Committee, cautioned during a recent hearing that this practice could spread. He cited a programming error in Pennsylvania that enabled noncitizens to register to vote and a review that discovered over 100 noncitizens on Ohio’s voter rolls.
“American elections are reserved for American citizens, and we are committed to maintaining it that way,” Mr. Steil affirmed.
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democratic nonvoting delegate from D.C., argues that Congress should not interfere in the local affairs of the District.
Republicans are also moving forward this week with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, sponsored by Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a prominent figure in the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.
Mr. Roy’s bill would mandate states to verify citizenship in person, such as with a birth certificate or passport, when registering individuals to vote and require states to eliminate noncitizens from voter rolls.
“Secure elections are essential for any representative government; without them, we cannot sustain a country,” stated Mr. Roy in a release. “Radical progressive Democrats are aware of this and are leveraging open border policies while also attacking laws that safeguard election integrity to fundamentally transform America.”
Democrats argue that requiring individuals to register in person and present a birth certificate or passport — documents that many Americans, especially teenagers or young adults, may not readily possess — only serves to obstruct citizens’ ability to vote.
Nearly 40% of the adult voting population did not participate in the last presidential election, and Mr. Morelle contended that additional barriers would further impede Americans from engaging in the electoral process.
“It’s just another tactic to prevent people from voting,” Mr. Morelle remarked regarding the G.O.P. legislation. “They persist in suppressing people’s voting rights.”
Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state known for rejecting Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in his state, has found common ground with Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson in advocating for the prohibition of noncitizen voting.
“Since assuming office in 2019, I have urged Congress to amend federal law and ensure that noncitizens cannot vote in our elections,” he stated in a release. “I appreciate Speaker Johnson and the former president for following my lead, and I anticipate concrete action being taken in Congress.”
However, David Becker, the director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, emphasized that instances of noncitizens voting in federal elections are extremely rare and suggested that Republicans may have ulterior motives.
“Imagine someone who has taken significant risks to be in the United States, or has gone through the legal process to be here, jeopardizing their status by drawing attention to themselves and putting themselves at risk to cast a single ballot in an election where 160 million votes will be cast,” he remarked. “It simply doesn’t happen.”
Mr. Becker noted that the federal government and states, including Georgia, already have effective policies in place to prevent such occurrences.
“This is largely a part of efforts, along with other forms of disinformation, to lay the groundwork for the claim that an election was stolen by individuals who apparently believe that the candidate they support is likely to lose,” Mr. Becker concluded.
