When President Joe Biden’s White House released a policy statement rejecting the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, it correctly noted that “it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections.”
This is true, so far as it goes, but it does not go very far. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote, but laws need to be enforced and often, to do that, they need to be made stronger.
It is also already illegal for noncitizens to cross our border without authorization. Yet literally millions of migrants have done exactly that and instead of being detained or returned across the border, as is required by federal law, Biden has let them into the country.
As a result, there are record-high numbers of noncitizens in the country, 6.6 million more since Biden took office, and thanks to loopholes in the National Voter Registration Act, many of them are registering to vote.
This is a direct assault on the integrity of federal elections and it must be stopped. The House of Representatives is set to vote on the SAVE Act this week, and every Democrat who votes against it should be held accountable at the ballot box this November.
Passed in 1993, the National Voter Registration Act requires states to provide voter registration materials to anyone who enters a Department of Motor Vehicles office or requests a mail-in voter registration form. The law also requires states to register any individual who completes and returns a voter registration form.
The standard national voter registration form includes a box asking the applicant to affirm that he or she is a U.S. citizen. But it does nothing to require proof. The form does ask for an “ID number,” but the ID required varies by state. In many Democratically-controlled states, such as California and Illinois, a driver’s license or other state-issued identification number suffices, even though a noncitizen can get a driver’s license. Democratically-controlled states are also notorious for making this very easy. All an illegal immigrant needs to do to register to vote is check the box and submit a state driver’s license or state-issued ID number. Then they could vote.
There are also millions of noncitizens who have Social Security numbers. Migrants who illegally crossed the border and were paroled into the United States by Biden can get Social Security numbers after filling out the right forms and getting authorization to work. Many who entered legally and then illegally overstayed their visas also have Social Security numbers. All these noncitizens could easily vote after checking a box and providing their Social Security numbers.
The White House also claims that it is “extraordinarily rare” for noncitizens to vote. It is also rare for migrants to rape and kill U.S. citizens yet it happens with increasing frequency under Biden. Studies show that even “rare” illegal voting can swing elections. One 2014 study of the 2008 elections found that while just 6.4% of noncitizens voted, their votes were enough to swing close elections and “likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters to pass health care reform and other Obama administration policies.”
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Preventing noncitizens from voting is fundamental to national sovereignty. If we cannot prevent noncitizens from determining our electoral outcomes, we are not a real country. The SAVE Act addresses this crisis by requiring a would-be voter to provide proof of citizenship before a state may register them to vote. To make this requirement easier on states, the legislation also provides free access to existing federal databases so they can confirm someone’s citizenship and clean up existing voter registration roles of noncitizens.
Considering everything Biden has allowed at the southern border, the public has no reason to trust that just because something is illegal, it doesn’t happen. The most important thing about a law is that it is enforced. If it isn’t, it does not really exist and all other considerations, such as its merits and its justice, are moot. Illegality is not only common under Biden, it is encouraged. Witness the millions of migrants illegally brought into the country through parole programs. Illegal immigrants broke our laws to come here, there is no reason to think they will start following the law if they stay. If we can’t protect our border, we must protect our ballot boxes and the SAVE Act will help accomplish that.