WASHINGTON, D.C. – While Senate Democrats rejected the SAVE Act introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on May 22, similar messaging legislation advanced in the U.S. House to block illegal aliens from voting in federal elections.
Lee’s proposal – dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act – failed to advance in the Senate on a purely party line vote.
“Illegal immigrants and non-citizens across the nation are being improperly registered to vote,” Lee argued, “allowing them to cast illegitimate ballots in federal elections.”
While Lee defended his proposal as needed to restore Americans’ shaken faith in the validity of federal vote counts, Democrats dismissed the legislation as a “… solution in search of a problem,” since federal law already forbids undocumented migrants from voting.
“When Americans are more confident that our elections are secure, they’re more likely to participate,” according to Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), the chairman of the House Administration Committee.
“Every one of my majority colleagues,” countered Rep. Joseph D. Morelle (R-NY), the ranking Democrat on that committee, “understands that this narrative will aggravate the perilous infection of election denialism that is spreading in the American civic body.”
But Republicans insist that the line between citizens and non-citizen voters is already blurred in many jurisdictions – including Washington, D.C. – where non-citizens are allowed to vote in local elections.
“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on May 8, in defense of Rep. Chip’s (R-TX) companion version of the SAVE Act, which fared better on the House side of the U.S. Capitol. “But it’s not something that is easily provable.”
Arguing that there is no evidence of non-citizens voting in federal elections other than in a handful of isolated incidents, Democrats insist that there was no lack of confidence in the security of the nation’s elections until doubts were raised by former President Donald Trump following the 2020 election.
Lee’s proposal was co-sponsored by Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Ted Budd (R-NC), John Kennedy (R-LA) and Rick Scott (R-FL).
“Under (President) Joe Biden’s watch, over 11 million illegal aliens are now here on U.S. soil,” Marshall observed. “That’s enough to replace the entire population of Kansas, almost four times over.
“Democrats’ motivation behind welcoming this influx of migrant has been clear – they believe these are future Democrat voters.”
Lee’s failed legislation – and that proposed by Roy which is still pending in the House – would amend the National Voter Registration Act, setting new requirements for states to verify the U.S. citizenship of voters.
Lee’s staff members explain that the SAVE Act would outline acceptable documentation for proving citizenship and require states to set up alternative verification processes for citizens with standard documentation.
The legislation would also compel states to purge non-citizens from voter rolls and establish federal penalties for intentionally registering non-citizens as voters.
Another measure to stop non-citizens from voting in local elections in the District of Columbia passed a floor vote in the U.S. House on May 23.
The Administration Committee of the U.S. House is also considering three other GOP-sponsored messaging bills.
Those proposals would prevent local officials from hiring non-citizens to administer elections; would bar states that allow ballot harvesting from receiving federal election administration funds; and would require state officials to track the names and addresses of inactive voters.