WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, a proposal that Republicans have made a priority as an election-year issue even though studies have shown that noncitizens illegally register and vote in federal elections are extremely rare.
The bill was approved mostly along party lines, but with a minority of Democrats voting in favor, it is unlikely to pass the Democratic-led Senate. The Biden administration has also strongly opposed it, saying there are safeguards already in place to verify voting eligibility and enforce laws banning foreign nationals from voting.
Still, the House vote will be an opportunity for Republicans to focus attention on two of their top issues this year: border and election security.
It’s also an opportunity to bolster former President Donald Trump’s argument that Democrats are trying to encourage a surge of immigrants to register to vote, which would be illegal: Foreign nationals are not allowed to vote in federal elections, let alone statewide elections.
clock: Right-wing disinformation fuels conspiracy theories about the 2024 election
Investigations and audits in some states have found cases of foreign nationals registering to vote and voting, but this is rare and usually due to mistake. Each state has mechanisms to check this, but there is no standard procedure that all states follow.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, the bill’s lead sponsor, said at a press conference earlier this week that Democratic opposition means many Democrats “want illegal immigrants to participate in federal elections and to vote.”
In his speech on Wednesday, Trump called the vote a “generation-defining moment.”
“If just a small percentage, just a small percentage, of the illegal immigrants that Joe Biden brought here to vote, that voted, that wouldn’t just change one race,” he said. “It could potentially change all of our races.”
Speaking on his platform, Truth Social, this week, President Trump suggested Democrats were trying to give voting rights to non-citizen immigrants, and urged Republicans to pass the Protect American Voter Status Act or “go home and cry yourself to sleep.”
The focus on foreign voting is part of a broader, long-term election strategy to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election if Trump loses, a point he has made at campaign rallies this year. “The only way they can beat us is by cheating,” Trump told supporters in Las Vegas last month. It’s also part of the Republican Party’s broader election strategy, which has seen Republican lawmakers pass state bills to include foreign voting legislation on state ballots in November.
Democrats and voting rights advocates say the law is unnecessary because it is already a felony for foreigners to register to vote in federal elections, punishable by fine, imprisonment, or deportation. Anyone who registers must attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are a U.S. citizen. Foreigners are also not allowed to vote at the state level; a few states allow foreigners to vote in some local elections.
Additionally, studies have found that millions of Americans lack easy access to current proof of citizenship documents, such as birth certificates, naturalization certificates or passports, so the bill could prevent U.S. citizens who cannot further prove their identity from voting.
During floor debate Wednesday, Rep. Joe Morrell of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, expressed concern that the bill would disenfranchise a range of Americans.
He cited military personnel stationed overseas who can’t show proof of citizenship in person at a polling office, married women whose names have been changed, Native Americans whose place of birth isn’t listed on their tribal ID, and survivors of natural disasters who have lost personal documents.
Morrell said he believes the bill is not an attempt to preserve voter rolls, but part of a larger Republican-led plan to call into question the legitimacy of the upcoming election.
“The false allegation that there is a conspiracy to register foreigners is a pretext to try to overturn the 2024 elections and potentially cause another tragedy on January 6, 2025,” he said.
But Republicans who support the bill say an unprecedented surge in migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally leaves too much of a risk that foreigners could slip through the cracks, knowingly or unintentionally breaking the law to cast a vote that could decide the outcome of a narrow November election.
“Any illegal vote invalidates the vote of lawful Americans,” said Rep. Brian Steele (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Administration Committee.
If passed, the bill would remove noncitizens from state voter rolls, require new applicants to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, and require states to establish procedures for applicants who cannot provide proof of citizenship to provide evidence other than proof of citizenship, although it is unclear what that evidence would include.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose recently said he was aware of 137 suspected foreign nationals on the state’s voter rolls, out of about 8 million people, and was taking steps to verify and remove them.
In 2022, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, conducted an audit of the state’s voter rolls, specifically looking for foreigners. His office found that 1,634 people had tried to register to vote over a 25-year period, but election officials intercepted all the applications and failed to register anyone.
In North Carolina, an election audit in 2016 found that 41 legal immigrants who were not yet citizens had cast ballots out of 4.8 million total votes cast, but these votes did not affect any elections in the state.
In a statement supporting the bill, Governor Johnson cited examples of foreigners who had been removed from the voting rolls in Boston and Virginia. The elections departments in those cities did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press seeking to verify the claim.
Several secretaries of state interviewed during a summer meeting in Puerto Rico this week said out-of-state people trying to register and vote is not a major issue in the state.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams (R) said his state already requires photo ID to vote, and most people use their driver’s license.
“In my state, we don’t really have a problem with this,” he said in an interview.
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections, said she supports the idea of the bill but drew a cautionary tale: sweeping voter rolls can remove people who are eligible to vote. A few years ago, Henderson’s entire family received a mail-in ballot for a city council election, except for her: She’d been removed from the rolls because she was born in the Netherlands, where her father served in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed.
“I was lieutenant governor, I oversaw elections, and I was removed from that position because I was born in the Netherlands,” she said, “so I think there are definitely, maybe to an extreme extent, checks and balances in Utah.”
The House vote came days after the Republican National Committee released its platform, which highlighted border security issues and opposed Democrats’ efforts to give “voting rights” to immigrants living in the country illegally.
Republicans are expected to air their concerns about immigration and election integrity next week at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump is due to accept his third consecutive presidential nomination.
Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.
