American elections should be secure. Only eligible citizens should vote, and actual violations should be investigated and prosecuted.
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But protecting elections also means protecting the right of eligible citizens to vote.
That is why the SAVE America Act deserves more scrutiny than its name suggests. The bill would require people to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering for federal elections and would create new identification requirements for voters. Supporters describe these measures as necessary to stop noncitizen voting.
The problem is that the evidence does not show a widespread crisis.
How many noncitizens are actually voting?
My professional background is in immigration law, and I know how seriously the law already treats noncitizen voting. A noncitizen who unlawfully votes can become inadmissible to the United States or deportable. A false claim to U.S. citizenship made to register or vote can be even more devastating. In many cases, it can permanently block most paths to lawful permanent residence and U.S. citizenship. Knowingly making a false claim to citizenship can also lead to federal criminal charges and imprisonment.
These are not symbolic penalties, and we are being told to believe that large numbers of noncitizens are willing to risk deportation, criminal prosecution, imprisonment and any future hope of becoming Americans merely to cast a single vote in an election decided by thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of ballots.
Utah recently provided . The lieutenant governor’s office reviewed 2,069,640 voter records. It confirmed 99.72% of registered voters as U.S. citizens and found 27 confirmed noncitizens, who were removed from the rolls. I expect at least some of these confirmed noncitizens registered accidentally, not understanding the , “Do you authorize the use of information in this form for voter registration purposes? YES____ NO____.”
Sensationalizing a rare problem may create outrage, but outrage is not evidence.
The same review warned that government databases can reliably confirm citizenship but cannot always reliably establish that someone is not a citizen, particularly when records involving naturalized citizens have not been updated.
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Policy should be built on evidence rather than fear
That is precisely the danger of building national policy around fear rather than proportion. A documentary requirement may sound simple to those who have a passport or birth certificate readily available. for low-income citizens, elderly voters, people born far from where they now live, naturalized citizens, tribal citizens or people whose names no longer match decades-old records.
The Bipartisan Policy Center reports that about 9% of eligible voters lack, or lack easy access to, documentary proof of citizenship. Kansas offers a sobering example: its documentary-proof requirement prevented roughly 31,000 eligible citizens from registering, while identified noncitizen registration represented about 0.002% of registered voters. ultimately held that Kansas’ requirement, on the evidence before it, imposed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.
The constitutional issue also deserves precision. Article I gives states initial responsibility for administering congressional elections, while giving Congress power to alter regulations governing their “Times, Places and Manner.” But that power is not unlimited. States have long played the central role in running elections and setting voter qualifications, while the Constitution protects citizens from unjustified burdens on the right to vote.
That is why this debate should not be driven by slogans, rumors or fear.
President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly portrayed noncitizen voting as a major threat to American elections. But rhetoric is not data. Repeating a claim does not make it true. Sensationalizing a rare problem may create outrage, but outrage is not evidence.
Election integrity means preventing ineligible people from voting. It also means ensuring that eligible citizens are not pushed out of the process by unnecessary bureaucracy.
A secure election is not one that makes voting harder for everyone.
It is one that uses evidence, enforces existing law and protects the rights of American citizens.
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We should be able to do all three.