WASHINGTON – Republicans on the U.S. House Administration Committee argued at a hearing Thursday that legislative action is needed to ban non-citizens from voting in federal elections – even though non-citizen voting in federal elections is extremely occasional and already illegal.
“American elections are for American citizens and we intend to keep them that way,” said committee Chairman Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin in his opening remarks.
House Democrats said Republicans were laying the groundwork to sow distrust in voting ahead of November’s election, drawing parallels to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol when then-President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to do so to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
“MAGA extremists are laying the groundwork to overturn the 2024 presidential election,” the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, said in his opening statement, using an acronym that is shorthand for Trump supporters.
Respond to local rules
Non-citizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections, but may vote in local elections if a local law is passed allowing them to do so. Certain municipalities in California, Maryland, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.
As the November election approaches, The Republicans are targeting non-citizen votingand have made immigration policy a campaign issue. Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, has also made the issue a central campaign issue.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson of Louisiana helped reveal it Last week a law was passed banning non-citizens from participating in federal elections, which is already illegal.
Steil said localities that allow non-citizens to vote “reduce confidence in our elections.” He specifically called out Washington, D.C. for allowing non-citizens to vote in the election.
“Washington, DC, is setting a new standard that could soon be applied across the country,” Steil said.
“This causes a host of problems for a state [a] “A clean voter registration list,” Steil argued.
Researchers and studies have often disproven that non-citizens vote in federal elections. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of voting behavior from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 cases in which non-citizens voted.
GOP members sponsor House bill
Republicans on the committee supported the election-related bill. H.R. 8281The Johnson climbed the steps of the US Capitol. The bill, introduced by Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, would require states to verify proof of citizenship to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, which is already a felony.
Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma argued that jurisdictions that allow noncitizens to vote should have a separate voter roll. She asked one of the witnesses, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior counsel at the Heritage Foundation, whether there should be a federal law requiring states to separate voter rolls. Von Spakovsky agreed to the idea.
Bice said the biggest problem she has with municipalities allowing non-citizens to vote is that “the voter rolls are not cleaned up.”
The Roy bill would require states to remove voters from the voter rolls who cannot prove their citizenship.
Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia argued that Americans care about elections. If non-citizens are allowed to vote, “we undermine and erode the value of every single vote,” he said.
Democrats say the bill would burden voters
Washington state Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer said the bill would impact eligible voters, including members of the 12 tribes in his district. He said when tribal members vote, they operate tribal registration cards, which “do not necessarily contain information about citizenship.”
Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama said the legislation would also make it harder for eligible voters — particularly voters of color — to cast their ballots. She asked the witness asked by the Democrats, Michael Waldman, the president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, on Republican claims of “widespread voter fraud” in non-citizens voting.
“Overwhelming, ours [election] “The system is secure,” Waldman said.
Waldman said it was “an urban myth” that high numbers of non-citizens vote in federal elections and warned that “this year the big lie is being spread in advance.”
He said those who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election are now more organized and are trying to “create the conditions to question the legitimacy of the election.”
He added that rhetoric about voting for many non-citizens in 2020 was also used by Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. who lost his license to practice law in DC and New York because of false allegations that there were tens of thousands of non-citizens in Arizona who voted in the presidential election.
“I should note that President Trump repeated lies on the Ellipse when he sent the mob to the Capitol,” Waldman said. “That wasn’t the central argument back then, but it is today.”
