Is there any aspect of life where a 99.72% success rate would call for external intervention? A medical treatment that cures 99.72% of patients generally does not call for additional surgery. A school that teaches 99.72% of its students to read does not need additional reading intervention.
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Similarly, Utah’s recent voter roll audit found that 99.72% of registered voters in the state are U.S. citizens legally registered to vote, and the Lt. Governor’s office immediately removed the ineligible people from the rolls. This clearly shows that Utah does not need the federal bureaucracy to intervene to keep its voter rolls clean.
Federal intervention in elections has, unfortunately, been a bipartisan affair in recent years. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order seeking federal intervention in voter registration, as did President Biden in 2021. The Democratic-controlled Congress in 2021 attempted to pass the For the People Act, while the Republican-controlled Congress is currently seeking to enact the SAVE America Act. Both bills would intervene in state voter registration in different ways.
But there is no need for federal bureaucracy involvement if the evidence shows that state and local election officials are doing their jobs. That is exactly the case for Utah, as evidenced by the recent voter roll audit, which found that of more than two million registered voters in the state, only 52 were flagged as noncitizens or likely noncitizens. Further, many of the 0.28% of voters whose citizenship could not be verified registered before voter ID was required.
Candidates and voters in Utah need confidence in election outcomes, whether the winning margin was narrow or a landslide. That’s why in addition to removing ineligible people, Utah’s election officials are currently verifying the citizenship of every unverified voter to make certain that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote.
What about Utah’s election administration makes federal intervention unnecessary?
First, and most obvious, is the quality of Utah’s election officials. If our voter registration system is achieving a 99.72% success rate, it is reasonable to conclude that the people overseeing it are a major part of that outcome.
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Second, beyond hardworking, civic-minded election officials, Utah has something going for it that applies to every state in the republic: federalism. Significant fraud in voter registration becomes impossibly difficult and prohibitively expensive when it requires the cooperation of dozens of state and local election officials.
This highlights the irony of attempts to federally intervene in voter registration: They make voter registration fraud simpler, and therefore more likely. Centralizing voter registration in the federal government means you can accomplish significant voter registration fraud by corrupting a handful of officials at a single federal agency, rather than having to get hundreds of election officials across dozens of states to go along. That would make voter registration fraud much more achievable. In a world where hostile foreign actors have proven they are willing to attempt to manipulate and undermine American elections, federal intervention that simplifies voter registration fraud is unwise.
Does this mean that the federal government has no role in ensuring secure elections? No. Again, Utah’s voter roll audit points the way.
A federal policy that incentivizes states to periodically verify voter citizenship through a voter roll audit, like the one Utah just completed, can boost election security while bolstering federalism. This principled approach will either identify states that may need additional intervention or reveal that further intervention is unnecessary nationwide.
Utah election officials should be commended for their successful efforts in maintaining secure voter registration. Utah voters can be confident that voter rolls are being systematically protected from fraud. Leaders in Washington, D.C. should follow Utah’s lead and incentivize citizenship audits of voter rolls. Then voters’ interests, rather than partisan interests, can be served by identifying and addressing potential problems based on the evidence.
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