Republicans are using their majority in Congress to strengthen former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that illegal voting by non-citizens is rampant, and if Trump loses, they will seek to commit illegal acts. is sowing the seeds of an effort to delegitimize the 2024 election results by pushing legislation that would It solves a problem that hardly exists.
House Republicans have introduced a series of bills aimed at allowing non-citizens to vote, something that is already a felony in federal elections, but people who study the issue say it rarely happens.
They plan to pass a bill this week repealing a District of Columbia law that allows non-citizens to vote in local elections, which Democrats say is necessary to prevent the practice from expanding to other jurisdictions. . And Republicans are pushing another measure that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as birth certificates or passports, to register voters.
The bill has virtually no chance of becoming law, but it would amplify Trump’s favorite pre-emptive claims of election fraud. This is also part of the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy that Republicans are intentionally allowing immigrants to enter the country illegally in order to weaken the voting power of Americans and lock in voters. He emphasizes that he supports an unsubstantiated theory that reflects the theory. Our own victory.
House Speaker Mike Johnson recently appeared alongside Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s vacation home in Florida, to announce a pledge to take tough action against migrants crossing the border. , suggested without evidence that immigrants were entering the country unrestricted as part of the immigration process. A conspiracy to vote for President Biden.
“There is currently a clear and unprecedented danger to the integrity of our electoral system – the threat of non-citizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections,” Johnson warned at a news conference on the steps of Parliament this month.
But he admitted there was no evidence to support that claim.
“We all know intuitively that a lot of illegal immigrants vote in federal elections, but that’s not something that can be easily proven,” Johnson said. “I don’t know the numbers.”
In fact, estimates are known, but they are very low. According to a national survey, the number of non-citizens believed to have voted in the 2016 election was about 30.
“They have never shown any evidence of actual fraud by non-Americans to vote in federal elections,” said Rep. Joseph D. Morrell of New York, the top Democrat on the governing board. It has not been submitted.” “So I think it’s immediately clear that this is all a pretext. They’re going to contest the election results again, and they need a reason.”
Fear of non-citizens voting in American elections dates back to the 1800s, but it reached a fever pitch during the Trump era. Shortly after taking office in 2017, Trump met with Congressional leaders at the White House and lied that he would have won if it weren’t for the 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants who voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the popular vote. made the claim. .
Since there was little evidence that non-citizens had voted after Trump lost the 2020 election, Trump and his allies largely avoided the topic as they sought to overturn the election results. Instead, they filed a myriad of other grievances, including the use of drop boxes and mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic. They also pushed debunked conspiracy theories, including hacking voting machines, mass voting by dead people, and vote reversals by Italian satellites and Chinese-rigged thermostats.
While the last election falsely touted the risk of illegal voting by non-citizens, Republicans say this time is different. They argue that the possibility of this is increasing because so many illegal immigrants are in the country, and that even a small number of illegal votes could sway the presidential election.
The bill, proposed by Texas Republican Rep. August Pflueger and scheduled for a vote this week, would repeal a 2022 D.C. law that allows noncitizens to vote in local elections. Many municipalities, including towns in Maryland and California, allow noncitizens to participate in local elections, especially in elections for school boards where children attend school.
Rep. Brian Still, R-Wis., chairman of the administration committee, warned in a recent hearing that the practice could become widespread. He pointed to a programming glitch that allowed noncitizens to register to vote in Pennsylvania, and an investigation that found more than 100 noncitizens were on Ohio’s voter rolls.
“American elections are for the American people, and we intend to keep them that way,” Steil said.
Democratic Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s nonvoting delegate, argues that Congress doesn’t need to interfere in D.C.’s local affairs.
This week, Republicans are also moving forward with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and a powerful leader of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Roy’s bill would require states to directly obtain proof of citizenship, such as birth certificates and passports, to register voters, and would require states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls. .
“Secure elections are a critical cornerstone of any representative government. Without them, our country would not exist,” Roy said in a statement. “Radical progressive Democrats know this and are attacking the Election Integrity Act to fundamentally reshape America while exploiting open borders policies.”
Democrats argue that registering people in person and requiring them to show birth certificates or passports — documents that many Americans, especially teenagers and young adults, don’t have readily available — would simply make it harder for people to vote.
Roughly 40% of adult voters did not vote in the last presidential election, and Morrell argued that additional obstacles will only make it harder for Americans to vote.
“This is just another way to prevent people from voting,” Morrell said of the Republican bill. “So they just continue to suppress people’s ability to vote.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger famously rejected Trump’s demands to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state, but he found common ground with Trump and Johnson on banning foreigners from voting.
“Since taking office in 2019, I have urged Congress to take steps to change federal law and prevent non-citizens from voting in elections,” he said in a statement. “I thank Speaker Johnson and the former President for following my lead, and I look forward to eventual action in Congress.”
But David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said non-citizens voting in federal elections is extremely rare and he suspects Republicans have an ulterior motive.
“People who have risked everything to come to America, or have gone through all the formalities to come here legally, to cast their vote, put themselves in a hot spotlight and draw attention to themselves. “Imagine someone who risked their position in an election with 160 million votes cast,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.”
Becker said the federal government and states, including Georgia, already have good policies in place to prevent this.
“This is being done primarily to prepare the United States for claims that the election was stolen by people who believe that the candidate they support is likely to lose,” Becker said.
