Trump, Johnson want to halt noncitizen voting. It’s already illegal : NPR

Former President Donald Trump and Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appeared collectively Friday to tout laws aimed toward stopping one thing that’s already unlawful in America: noncitizens voting in federal elections.

Johnson gave a broad overview of a invoice Home Republicans will quickly introduce that might implement new citizenship documentation necessities for folks to register to vote, which specialists have mentioned would make voting more durable for a lot of eligible voters like naturalized residents and younger voters.

“We can not watch for widespread fraud to happen,” he mentioned at a information convention at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. “Particularly when the specter of fraud is rising with each single unlawful immigrant that crosses that [southern U.S.] border.”

The parable that immigrants are exerting undo affect on American elections has been floating round U.S. politics for greater than 100 years.

Particular person states started banning noncitizens from voting greater than a century in the past, and Congress handed a legislation in 1996 that explicitly banned the observe in all federal elections.

Quite a few research have additionally confirmed that it virtually by no means occurs, however as extra conservative voters say immigration is a key difficulty for them, it is develop into clearer that election misinformation in 2024 will middle on the subject as effectively.

Final month, NPR acquired a two-page memo being circulated by conservative legal professional Cleta Mitchell, a former adviser to Trump, that pushed various false narratives round noncitizens voting. The doc centered totally on the implementation of a 1993 legislation that made registering to vote simpler, and Johnson talked about the legislation in his remarks Friday as effectively.

They each have additionally pushed the unfounded concept that the Biden administration is permitting migrants to cross the southern border for political acquire.

“We consider one of many causes for this open border … is as a result of they wish to flip these folks into voters,” Johnson mentioned, with out offering any proof.

Election officers confirm citizenship in several methods in several states, however federal legislation requires voters to offer a novel identification quantity after they register to vote and since that’s often both a driver’s license or Social Safety quantity, election officers can often work with these companies to confirm citizenship standing.

“Most candidates use their [driver’s license] to register,” Tammy Patrick, a former native election official in Arizona who’s now the CEO of the nonprofit Election Heart, wrote in an e mail. “This quantity typically serves because the validation of citizenship since most DMVs retain citizenship standing of their databases.”

Specialists say introducing laws, nevertheless, is a method for lawmakers to point to voters this difficulty is one thing to be involved about, whilst there’s by no means been proof to assist the concept noncitizens are voting at something apart from miniscule numbers.

Since 2020, 9 states have enacted new legal guidelines aiming to establish and take away noncitizens from their voter rolls, and laws is at present lively in 16 states, in response to the Voting Rights Lab.

“Notion is 9/10 of actuality,” Ron Hayduk, an professional on noncitizen voting at San Francisco State College, mentioned in an interview with NPR earlier this yr. “Placing the answer on the desk suggests there was an issue. And I believe that is a part of the purpose. [These laws] create an answer to an issue that does not exist.”

Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, had his workplace carry out a citizenship audit in 2022 that discovered fewer than 2,000 suspected noncitizens registering to vote within the state over the prior 25 years. None have been truly in a position to solid a poll.

“Noncitizens usually are not voting in Georgia,” Raffensperger mentioned in a latest interview with NPR, although he did laud Johnson and Trump’s remarks Friday.

And a latest examine in Arizona (first reported by The Washington Put up) discovered that lower than 1% of noncitizens try and register to vote, and even in these instances, the overwhelming majority are regarded as errors.

Including confusion to the problem, nevertheless, is the truth that a couple of native jurisdictions have moved to permit noncitizens to vote in native elections. San Francisco, as an example, permits resident noncitizen mother and father and guardians to vote in class board elections, and a few cities in Maryland and Vermont permit noncitizens to vote in municipal elections.

Election officers in these jurisdictions implement practices to ensure these voters do not solid ballots in races they don’t seem to be imagined to.

However Hayduk says even in locations the place noncitizens can legally vote, they typically do not. Folks he is interviewed about their expertise in these locations do not wish to danger their standing within the U.S. simply to solid a single poll — additional proof, in his eyes, that this is not an precise drawback.

“Time and time once more within the interviews we did, we heard from immigrants who mentioned they have been tremendous enthusiastic about this new legislation to permit them to vote, and it felt prefer it affirmed their voices. … However, , put themselves in danger? Not price it,” Hayduk mentioned. “So clearly, they don’t seem to be going to try this for a federal election the place there’s an express legislation handed in 1996 that might impose very severe felony crimes … and that would definitely result in their detention and deportation.”