House Republicans passed a bill on Wednesday requiring expanded proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The initiative, which passed the Lower House in a 221-198 vote with the support of five Democrats, also imposes voter roll purge requirements on states.
The bill still faces long odds in the Senate but critics have been quick to point out the bill's redundancy given that noncitizen voting is already illegal in the country. Critics also believe that the bill is merely aimed at discouraging voter turnout among immigrant communities.
The proposed bill mandates that individuals provide "documentary proof of U.S. citizenship" when registering to vote in federal elections. Republicans have increasingly emphasized this issue, asserting the need for safeguarding the electoral process.
America's Voice, an immigration reform organization, has been one of the most vocal organizations against the bill. The NGO recently shared a fact sheet providing several stats and numbers around non-citizen voting including:
- <1% Close to zero is the percentage of non-citizens who have ever registered to vote.
- 9% or 21 million American citizens cannot access proof of citizenship.
- 2% of voters or 3.8 million adult citizens have no proof of citizenship.
America's Voice also hosted a panel of immigration advocates to discuss the issue through Zoom, as Florida Phoenix reports. Among the panelists was Juan Espinoza, an adviser at UnidosUS, who gave his two cents about what he thinks the real intentions behind the bill are:
"The noncitizen nonsense is a broad and orchestrated attack on the legitimacy of Latino voters and other communities who are constantly villainized and weaponized in this country."
Espinoza warned that the rhetoric surrounding noncitizens voting could lead to unintended consequences, including the wrongful removal of Latino citizens from voter rolls, overrepresentation in signature-verification processes, reduced volunteerism at polling stations, and potential violence.
Sean Morales-Doyle, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice, emphasized that violating existing laws to vote as a noncitizen carries severe penalties, including prison time and deportation, reasons that have so far been sufficient to deter wrongdoing:
"I think it helps sometimes to take a step back and think about why those serious consequences mean that the reality is that we don't see this happening in significant numbers at all; noncitizens are not voting in our state and federal elections in any kind of significant numbers."
Zachary Mueller, research director for America's Voice, likened the bill to a a GOP "Plan B" against another Donald Trump loss.
"This is Plan B, if Republicans do not win in November, is to again create lies and fictions that immigrants are stealing our elections."
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