WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday to require proof of citizenship for voter registration, a proposal 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 five Democrats voting in favor, it is unlikely to pass the Democratic-led Senate. The Biden administration has also said it strongly opposes the law banning foreign nationals from voting because safeguards already exist to enforce it.
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.
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 Truth Social platform this week, President Trump suggested Democrats were trying to give voting rights to non-citizen immigrants, and urged Republicans to pass the American Voter Eligibility Protection 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 claim 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.
Vincente Gonzalez, one of the Democrats who voted in favor of the Republican bill, said he only voted in favor because the bill was destined to fail in the Senate.
“This bill isn’t going anywhere,” said Gonzalez, who represents a competitive border district in Texas. “It’s nothing more than a Republican messaging bill.”
Most 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 fines, imprisonment, and deportation. Those who register must prove, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens. 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 argue that an unprecedented surge in migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally poses too great a risk that foreigners could slip through loopholes and cast votes that could determine the outcome of November’s election.
“Any illegal vote invalidates the vote of any lawful American citizen,” said Rep. Brian Steele of Wisconsin, Republican 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 written statement supporting the bill, Johnson cited other examples of foreigners who had been removed from the rolls in Boston and Virginia.
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.
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections, said she supports the bill in concept but cautioned that aggressive purging of voter rolls could remove eligible voters in some cases.
A few years ago, everyone in her family received a mail-in ballot for a city council election except for her: She had been removed from the rolls because she was born in the Netherlands, where her father was stationed in the U.S. Air Force.
“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 checks and balances in Utah, probably to an extreme degree.”
The House vote came days after the Republican National Committee released its platform, which emphasized border security and opposed Democrats’ efforts to give “voting rights” to immigrants in the country illegally. Republicans are expected to highlight concerns about immigration and election integrity at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week.
___
Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to strengthen its commentary coverage of elections and democracy. Learn more about the AP Democracy Initiative here. The Associated Press is solely responsible for all content.
