uly 11 :
The bill would make it illegal for non-citizens to register to vote in federal elections, a practice that is currently prohibited. On July 10, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives approved the measure, propelled by Trump's baseless accusations about electoral fraud. The measure was approved by the House 221 to 198 on the grounds that illegal border crossers could vote in the presidential and congressional elections this year, less than four months before Trump's November 5 election showdown with Democratic President Joe Biden.
This bill will almost certainly die in the Senate, which is now controlled by Democrats. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would mandate that states remove any names of individuals believed to be non-citizens from voter lists and would demand confirmation of U.S. citizenship from individuals registering to vote.
Using a false identity to cast a ballot in a federal election is already a crime, and research has demonstrated that this occurs very seldom.
Republicans reject the measure because they see it as an attempt to discourage voting among important Democratic demographics using a Trump-inspired messaging that will damage public trust in the American voting system.
To protect our elections, this measure would accomplish nothing, according to a statement released by the White House this week. However, the simplicity with which eligible Americans can register to vote would be much diminished, and the likelihood of eligible voters being removed from voter registers would rise.
In their defense of the measure, Republicans have used Trump-style apocalyptic language. Voting against the measure would be like "handing over our country to illegal aliens, cartel traffickers, and violent criminals and murderers," House Speaker Mike Johnson said in his floor statement before the vote.
Even though he doesn't actually support the measure, Trump keeps claiming, without proof, that huge voting fraud stole the 2020 election.
While in Florida in April for a joint news conference with Trump, Johnson—who depended on Trump's support to stave off an effort by Republican hardliner Marjorie Taylor Greene to remove him from leadership—unveiled plans for the bill. Even more outrageously, Johnson and other Republicans have claimed that Democrats are trying to get non-citizens to cast ballots.
According to Representative Joe Morelle, the leading Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which is responsible for election legislation, Republicans are only interested in one thing, despite all the crying out loud: undermining the trust that Americans have in our voting system.
Some cities and towns, such Montpelier, Vermont, New York City, and Washington, D.C., have permitted resident aliens to cast ballots in local elections; Johnson and other Republicans have pointed to this fact and statistics demonstrating that non-citizens are registered to vote in some states.
A portion of Republicans' arguments also centers on a research from 2014 that was partially based on the widely-rejected idea that noncitizen voting may influence presidential and legislative elections. This report was utilized by Trump to bolster his assertion that the 2016 presidential election was won by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton due to votes cast by non-citizens who were not citizens.
Wendy Weiser, who oversees the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, termed this as an alarmist strategy. Citizenship is required to vote in U.S. elections. There are several safeguards in place, and it is illegal on a federal and state level.
Research out of the Brennan Center looked over 23.5 million votes cast in the 2016 presidential election across 42 jurisdictions; they found 30 cases of probable non-citizen voting, or 0.0001% of the total.
