Illegal voting by noncitizens is rare, yet Republicans are making it a major issue this election

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Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in this fall’s election for president and other top offices. While that is nothing new, the potential for noncitizens to register or vote has been receiving a lot of attention lately.

Citing an influx of immigrants in recent years at the U.S.-Mexico border, Republicans have raised concerns about the possibility that noncitizens will be voting and they have taken steps in numerous states to address that prospect, even though cases of noncitizens actually voting are rare.

GOP officials have undertaken reviews of voter rolls, issued executive orders and placed constitutional amendments on state ballots as part of an emphasis on thwarting noncitizen voting. Some Democrats contend the measures could create hurdles for legal voters, are unnecessary and lead people to believe the problem of noncitizens voting is bigger than it really is.

What does the law say?

A 1996 U.S. law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for President or members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. They can also be deported.

When people register to vote, they confirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone who is ineligible, a process that could identify immigrants living in the country illegally.

No state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many states have laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting for state offices such as Governor or Attorney General. But some municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, do allow voting by noncitizens in some local elections such as for School Board and City Council.

What does the data say?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said this past week that more than 6,500 potential noncitizens have been removed from Texas voter rolls since 2021, including 1,930 with “a voter history” who have been referred for investigation by the attorney general’s office. Texas has almost 18 million registered voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in August that he referred for potential prosecution 138 apparent noncitizens found to have voted in a recent election and 459 more who registered but did not vote. Those figures were higher than reviews from previous years but a small fraction of the more than 8 million registered voters in Ohio.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, recently announced that 3,251 people previously identified as noncitizens by the federal government are being switched to inactive status on the state’s voter registration rolls. They will be required to provide proof of citizenship and fill out a form to vote in November. Alabama has more than 3 million registered voters.

In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found that 1,634 potential noncitizens tried to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, though election officials flagged them and none was registered. Georgia registered millions of other voters during that time.

Some election administration experts have said the voter roll reviews show that current tools to flag noncitizen voters are working.

What do the courts say?

Arizona provides a case study for the long-running attempts by Republicans to prohibit noncitizen voting.

Under a 2004 voter-approved initiative, Arizona required a driver’s license, birth certificate, passport or other similar document to approve a federal voter registration application. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship for people to vote in federal elections.

The state responded by creating two classes of voters. For state and local elections, voters must provide proof of citizenship when they register or have it on file with the state. But because that cannot be required in presidential and congressional elections, tens of thousands of voters who have not provided proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.

An August order by a divided U.S. Supreme Court will allow voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” to be rejected by Arizona counties while litigation over the law continues. People will be able to register to vote in presidential and congressional elections using a different federal form that requires people to swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, without requiring proof.

What’s on the ballot?

Republican-led Legislatures in eight states have proposed constitutional amendments on their November ballots declaring that only citizens can vote.

Proposals in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin would replace existing constitutional provisions stating that “every” citizen or “all” citizens can vote with new wording saying “only” citizens can vote. Supporters contend the current wording does not necessarily bar noncitizens from voting.

In Idaho and Kentucky, the proposed amendments would explicitly state: “No person who is not a citizen of the United States” can vote. Similar wording won approval from Louisiana voters two years ago.

Voters in North Dakota, Colorado, Alabama, Florida and Ohio passed amendments between 2018 and 2022 restricting voting to “only” citizens.

What else are states doing?

Although noncitizen voting already is prohibited in the state constitution, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana is continuing to draw attention to the issue. He recently signed an executive order requiring state agencies that provide voter registration forms to include a written disclaimer that noncitizens are prohibited from voting.

In Georgia, Raffensperger last week required every polling place to post a sign in English and Spanish warning noncitizens that it is illegal to vote.

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, citing “significant growth of the noncitizen population” in the state, set up a special email account Wednesday to report suspected violations of election laws.

In Wisconsin, Republicans have filed a pair of similar lawsuits in recent weeks that challenge the state’s process for verifying whether a registered voter is a citizen. The lawsuits seek court orders requiring the elections commission to perform checks to ensure there are no registered voters who are noncitizens.

North Carolina Republicans have sued the state election board, alleging it is not enforcing a new law aimed at removing people from voter rolls who seek jury duty exclusions because they are not citizens.

Tennessee’s top election office sent letters in June asking for proof of citizenship from more than 14,000 registered voters, though those who failed to respond will not be barred from voting. The list was based on data from the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which has information about whether residents were U.S. citizens when they first interacted with that department.

What has Congress done?

Republicans in Congress are pushing a bill, known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. During a news conference about the legislation this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, did not provide specific examples of noncitizens voting but insisted it is a concern.

“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” he said, “but it’s not been something that is easily provable.”

The legislation passed the Republican-led House in July largely along partisan lines but has not come to a vote in the Democratic-led Senate. The Biden administration said it is strongly opposed and that laws against noncitizen voting are working.

“This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls,” the White House said in a statement.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.