Republican efforts to ensure that only citizens are voting in American elections are, outside the partisan Democrat-media bubble, not very controversial. But if you watched NBC News’ “Meet The Press” on Sunday, you might not know that. The left-wing outlet invited its favorite Democrat secretaries of state as well as two of the most milquetoast Republican election officials to talk about Democrats’ favorite election-related talking points.
“I want to turn now to something that’s getting a lot of attention: efforts to prevent noncitizens from voting,” host Kristen Welker said, referring to the Republican-led SAVE Act, a bill in Congress that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. “We should note that it’s exceedingly rare, and yet some officials believe it’s an urgent matter, including yourself,” she asked Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “Why? And we should note, it’s already against the law to vote if you’re a noncitizen.”
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It’s true that alien voting in federal elections is “against the law,” but it’s also true that currently, enforcement of that law is based on the honor system. Instead of tearing down the assumptions inherent in Welker’s question — and the whole segment — Raffensperger played along, answering the question as if he and other Republicans should have to defend why only citizens should vote in the election, instead of Democrats defending why they oppose the commonsense reforms.
“I believe only American citizens should be voting in our elections,” Raffensperger said, noting the state has citizenship verification and has found 1,600 people who attempted to register but could not prove their citizenship and were therefore prevented from getting on voter rolls. The secretary also pointed out that the state has successfully fought efforts from left-wing organizations that sought to stop the state from verifying citizenship.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson interjected, arguing all states are already ensuring “the federal provisions” prohibiting foreign nationals from voting are “protected.”
Raffensperger pointed out that beyond the federal law requiring voters to attest to their citizenship, there is “no provision for state law other than state law.”
But what he didn’t say is that currently, voters registering on a federal application need only to affirm their citizenship by checking a box rather than providing documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC). Saying there is “no provision for state law other than state law” fails to underscore why the national SAVE Act is so crucial and fails to make an easy rebuttal to the left-wing narrative that the legislation is a waste of resources. Besides, it would be foolishly optimistic to expect states led by Democrats who benefit from lax voting laws to share Republicans’ appetite for removing foreign nationals from voter rolls.
What’s more, in the past the federal government has actively prohibited states like Arizona from enforcing stronger voter citizenship laws when residents register to vote in federal elections. But Raffensperger didn’t address that, not even when Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes handed him the opportunity to do so.
“Arizona, by the way, we’ve had a [citizen] voting law on the books for a long time, and we actually have a separate ballot for folks who are federal-only voters,” Fontes said. “Our standards are higher than everybody else’s, but we’ve still got folks making crazy allegations that they’re not.”
There was nothing particularly objectionable in what Raffensperger did say, pointing out that “left-wing groups [are] trying to get noncitizens voting in local elections” and asking “if people really, truly believe [alien voting doesn’t happen], then why are we getting sued by the left to stop us from doing citizenship verification?” But in the entire segment, he missed the big picture: that Democrats are opposed to legislation securing American elections from foreign influence. Additionally, his answers failed to address the fact that states are often met with federal roadblocks when they try to keep foreign nationals out of elections, a problem only federal legislation can solve.
Arizona voters approved a law in 2004 requiring DPOC to vote. The Supreme Court, however, forced the state in 2013 to accept the lax federal voter registration form. In response, Arizona began allowing voters who could not provide DPOC to register as “federal-only” voters — meaning they could vote in federal elections only but not statewide elections. But in 2018 the state was forced to “not only accept federal-only applications lacking proof of citizenship but also grant a federal-only registration to applicants who used a state form but couldn’t provide proof of citizenship,” as my colleague M.D. Kittle explained.
A federal judge recently ruled Arizona has an interest in keeping noncitizens off its voter rolls and found the DPOC requirements for the state form are legal, though the same judge last year struck down a state law requiring DPOC for voting in presidential elections and casting mail-in ballots.
In the 2020 election, 11,600 people voted using a federal-only ballot, according to AZ Free News. President Joe Biden won the state by 10,457 votes.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.
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