It would be wrong to allow illegal aliens to decide the results of American elections by casting unlawful votes, and Republicans want to do something to ensure that does not happen. That’s the takeaway from last month’s Mar-a-Lago press availability featuring former President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who together touted a new House bill aimed at addressing the concern. Their legislative solution is simple, and should garner the support of everyone who wants to ensure election integrity.
The new House bill – the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act – is authored by Texas Republican Chip Roy. The legislation would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to require states to obtain documentary proof of citizenship in order to register someone to vote in an election for federal office.
Liberals sneered at Trump and Johnson touting the new bill. Non-citizens can’t vote in federal elections & haven’t been able to do so for decades,” posted one veteran Capitol Hill reporter to X, formerly known as Twitter. “Republicans aim to stop noncitizen voting in federal elections. It’s already illegal” was the headline on a report by National Public Radio. “Trump, Johnson Announce Redundant Proof of Citizenship Bill to Vote,” headlined Rolling Stone magazine.
Apparently, none of those sneering liberals actually read the draft legislation. If they had, they would have seen that the legislation does not make it illegal for a noncitizen to vote in a federal election – as they (correctly) point out, that is already illegal. What the bill does is to amend the current law to require states to obtain documentary proof that an individual is a citizen of the United States before registering him or her to vote in an election for federal office, so as to ensure that only citizens can vote in federal elections.
The amendment to the NVRA is necessary because the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that states cannot add requirements for registration – such as proof of citizenship – to the federal form required by the NVRA. The state of Arizona had, as the result of a ballot initiative, added to its voter registration regime a requirement that registrants provide proof of citizenship before being allowed to register. Opponents of the additional requirement sued, claiming that the Arizona law was pre-empted by the federal law.
A 7-2 Supreme Court majority, with the majority opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled that the Arizona law must yield to the federal law. Ever since, states have been prohibited from adding any requirements to register beyond those required by the federal form created by the NVRA.
It’s one thing to require someone to swear he or she is a citizen, especially when all that is required to do so is that a registrant check a box on a form and then sign his or her name to it. It’s quite another thing to require that registrant to provide documentary proof of citizenship in addition to swearing.
Making something illegal doesn’t mean that whatever you’ve just outlawed will stop. For example, it’s against the law for a non-citizen to cross our border without authorization from the proper authorities. Yet millions of people have done so just in the last three years – more than we have ever seen in a similar time frame.
Similarly, the fact that it’s illegal for non-citizens to vote doesn’t guarantee that non-citizens will not vote. Neither does the fact that it’s illegal for non-citizens to register to vote guarantee that non-citizens will not vote. Making it illegal for them to register to vote without first providing documentary proof of citizenship, on the other hand, would make it impossible for non-citizens to vote, to the extent the new requirement is enforced by the states, because the non-citizens would not have been able to register to vote in the first place.
The same liberals who sneer at the introduction of the new legislation say not only is it redundant (because they wrongly assert the new bill outlaws non-citizen voting), but it is unnecessary, because there’s no evidence that non-citizens are voting in large numbers.
That’s an irrelevant argument. It makes no difference whether there’s a rash of non-citizen voting taking place. A single vote cast illegally by a non-citizen is one illegal vote too many, and prudence and a respect for election integrity – the very foundation of our republic, because it ensures that our government actually derives its just powers from the consent of the governed – demand that we take the necessary steps to ensure that only citizens’ votes determine the outcome of our elections.
Moreover, the time to prepare for and deter potential calamities is before they happen, not after. I don’t live in a neighborhood with particularly high crime, but I keep my door locked anyway. If we can deter a calamity – as an election determined wrongly by the inclusion of votes cast illegally by non-citizens would certainly be – why wouldn’t we
Congressman Roy’s Safeguarding American Voters Eligibility (SAVE) Act is a legislative remedy to a problem that has not yet occurred. Prudence demands that we enact it. Three cheers to Speaker Johnson and President Trump for highlighting it, and more kudos to Roy for introducing it.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.