The House approved a measure Wednesday to require proof of US citizenship when registering to vote — a measure strongly opposed by top Democrats and the White House despite proof of non-citizens casting ballots in federal elections.
A majority of 216 Republicans and five Democrats voted to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, with swing-district Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Don Davis (D-NC) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) among those crossing party lines.
The bill was opposed by 198 Democrats.
“Today 198 House Democrats voted against preventing illegal aliens from voting in American elections,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement. “Over the past four years, Joe Biden has welcomed millions upon millions of illegals into the country knowing that noncitizens only have to check a box to vote in a federal election.”
“We have long known this was an intentional effort to turn them into voters, and now the American people know where every member of Congress stands on this critically important issue,” Johnson also said. “House Republicans believe that only Americans should vote in American elections. House Democrats have now proven they believe that illegal aliens should vote in American elections.”
It’s illegal for non-US citizens to vote in federal elections, but that hasn’t stopped hundreds from doing so and thousands from attempting to do so, state and federal investigations have shown.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) whipped his caucus in opposition to what he called an “extreme MAGA Republican voter suppression bill,” before inaccurately stating: “There is no evidence that has been presented to suggest that undocumented individuals have been participating in federal elections.”
The White House also issued a veto threat against the legislation on Monday.
“It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections—it is a Federal crime punishable by prison and fines,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.
“Additionally, making a false claim of citizenship or unlawfully voting in an election is punishable by removal from the United States and a permanent bar to admission,” the statement also reads.
“This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls.”
Left-of-center groups like the Campaign Legal Center have further dismissed concerns about the loophole in registration being able to sway elections, but conservatives have remained unconvinced.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who introduced the bill, told The Post and other reporters on Tuesday that the claims it would disenfranchise US voters were “hogwash.”
“We’ve seen that Democrats are now trying to abuse this,” Roy said. “And you’ve got, you know, in Oakland, and San Francisco and New York and DC and all across the country — Democrats are pushing to allow non-citizens to vote.”
“They say — wink, wink — ‘Only in state and local elections,’” he suggested.
Johnson’s office released a 21-page white paper on the legislation last month, urging Congress to pass it and thwart potential “foreign election interference” as a result of the record-breaking 6.4 million immigrants who have entered the US and taken up residence since President Biden took office in January 2021.
The paper references another effort by Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) last year to introduce legislation that would provide mass amnesty to migrants — even those who have illegally voted in past elections.
“We have so many non-citizens in the country right now that if only one out of 100 of those illegal aliens voted, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of votes being cast,” Johnson warned in his floor speech, adding that the number could “determine the future of this great Republic.”
“As our dear friend, congresswoman [Mariannette] Miller-Meeks will tell you she won her election in 2020 by six votes,” he pointed out, referring to the Iowa Republican’s narrow win over Democrat Rita Hart that year.
In the position paper, Johnson’s staff also pointed to an academic study that found non-citizen voter participation “has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections.”
If the same rate of non-citizen voter participation occurs in November, the paper claims it would be “sufficient enough to determine the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.”
Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, told The Post last month that it was “difficult to predict the actual numbers of aliens that may vote because so many states do absolutely nothing to verify the citizenship of registered voters.”
The bill would help that by cleaning up voter rolls in US states by verifying people through federal databases at the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.
Voter rolls have been shown through audits in recent years to contain thousands of non-citizens — including the swing-states of Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and welfare offices nationwide are required to hand over voter registration forms in at least 46 states along with applications for driver’s licenses and federal benefit programs.
In filling out the federal form, would-be voters only have to make a signed attestation of their citizenship, and in some states must also provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number.
Only three US states — Tennessee, Virginia and New Mexico — ask for the full Social Security number.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has expanded access to health care and other federal benefit packages like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, putting more migrants within reach of the forms.
It has also provided avenues for asylum seekers, parolees and foreigners present in the US on work visas to obtain social security numbers.
Additionally, 19 states and Washington, DC, allow non-citizens to receive driver’s licenses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a move that Biden supported as a presidential candidate in 2020.
“Perhaps the Democrat Party would prefer that we only identify fraudulent voters after the fact but after an election has already decided and the new members are sworn in,” Johnson said before the vote. “That’s not acceptable. That doesn’t instill trust. It doesn’t ensure the integrity of the system.”
“Because the Democratic Party has shown time and time again that they want our borders wide open to every country on the planet, and that they want illegal aliens voting in our elections, we now have reached a fateful decision point,” Johnson concluded.
“Since our elections are so razor thin, it’s not just our physical safety of our communities that are in jeopardy, it’s also the integrity of the ballot box.”