House voter registration plan offers a key safeguard

The U.S. House of Representatives on July 10 passed a bill to prevent states from allowing noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The legislation passed 221-198, with only five Democrats voting yes. The vote highlights a stark difference between the two major political parties in their respect for the rule of law and the integrity of the election process.

Some U.S. states currently allow noncitizens to vote in local elections though they are ineligible to vote in federal elections. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would require prospective voters to provide proof of citizenship to register for federal elections. The legislation would also direct the states to remove noncitizens from their voter registration rolls for federal elections.

Making voter registration easier means making phony registration easier, too, unless states make a special effort to root it out.

The media wants to spin the bill as unnecessary and intended “as an election-year talking point” and “part of a broader and long-term Trump campaign strategy of casting doubt on the validity of an election should he lose,” as the Associated Press put it.

The argument that the legislation is superfluous because illegal voter registration is already unlawful is an obvious sophistry. The bill is meant to make sure states enforce the law. “Even though it’s already illegal, this is happening,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said.

The Biden administration clearly cares more about increasing registration than the legality of the votes, saying in a statement the SAVE Act “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.” Similarly, “House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said in a ‘Whip Question’ sent to House Democrats the act’s proof of citizenship requirement ‘would prevent Americans from registering to vote with their drivers’ license alone,’” the Center Square reported.

Bill sponsor Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) “disputed that, arguing Democrats opposed the bill ‘because they WANT non-citizens, including illegals, to vote,’” the news organization added.

It stands to reason that making voter registration easier means making phony registration easier, too, unless states make a special effort to root it out. Phony registration certainly happens and in very high numbers.

In California, for example, the Election Integrity Project found the state had 1.8 million more registered voters than the number of eligible citizens, with 23 counties showing “more registered voters than eligible.” As a result, “There [were] almost 124,000 more votes counted in California’s November 3, 2020 election than voters recorded as voting in that election,” the California Globe reported in 2021. The number of ineligible voter registrations in California nearly doubled in just four years starting in 2017.

California is a one-party state, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans by more than 3-1 in the State Assembly and 4-1 in the State Senate. Perhaps that is mere coincidence.

California is just one of many places with poorly maintained voter rolls. In 2017, the United States had “3.5 million more registered voters than live adults,” columnist Deroy Murdock reported in National Review. Murdock found “462 counties where the registration rate exceeded 100 percent,” according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the federal Election Assistance Commission collected by Judicial Watch.

Murdock found large amounts of falsely registered voters in what were then battleground states, such as Colorado (159,373), Florida (100,782), Iowa (31,077), Michigan (225,235), New Hampshire (8,211), North Carolina (189,721), and Virginia (89,979).

False registrations are almost certainly still occurring in large and growing numbers. In a story critical of the GOP bill, AP acknowledged the National Voter Registration Act “actually errs on the side of enfranchising voters. To prevent eligible voters from being disenrolled, it requires outdated records to remain in the system for some years after they’re flagged as a potential concern.”

Joe Biden, of course, has embraced voter registration with a passion, directing his entire administration to assist in packing the nation’s voter rolls. In response, Indiana’s Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales “warned more than 120 federal agencies operating in Indiana against providing voter registration services described in a three-year-old presidential executive order without state approval” earlier this month, according to the Greenfield Daily Reporter. Other states should follow his example.

Many proponents of easier voter registration probably just want to help little old ladies get to the voting booth. Others, however, may want to use easy voter registration to enable political machines to “find” enough votes to win every election. There is no logical reason to dismiss the existence of the latter or assume they are rare.

Of course, the SAVE Act will not survive the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate, and Biden would veto it if it somehow landed on his desk. That makes the bill essentially a formality.

It does not, however, make the legislation unnecessary.