House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., chided Democrats for opposing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would prevent from noncitizens from voting in federal elections
"Many of the Democrats want illegals to participate in our federal elections, they want them to vote. There's no other conclusion that you can draw," Johnson said. "When the White House announced they would veto the bill, they effectively handed our elections over to all of these illegal aliens that have come here."
Noncitizens are already barred from voting in federal elections. The bill specifically requires states to obtain proof of citizenship — in person — when registering an individual to vote and to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls.
The bill has little chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House has vowed a veto.
"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," the Biden administration said. "The evidence is clear that the current laws to prevent noncitizen voting are working as intended — it is extraordinarily rare for noncitizens to break the law by voting in federal elections."
Johnson said the bill was "common sense legislation."
"We have to make sure that we don't have an election that is flawed in this way," Johnson said. "You should ask every Democrat if they're voting against this legislation and how in the world they can justify it."
A 2016 audit in North Carolina found 41 legal immigrants who voted in the state's elections out of 4.8 million votes cast. The Department of Justice later filed criminal charges against 19 immigrants for illegally voting in the state.
In 2022, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did an audit of his state's voter rolls and found 1,634 noncitizens, but election officials had caught all the applications and none was registered to vote.
"It's a serious problem and we cannot allow a federal election to be jeopardized by people who can run into the local welfare office, sign up for taxpayer benefits and check a box that says I'm a citizen and I want to vote," Johnson said.
Information from the Association Press was used to this report.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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