STRICT Voter Verification PROPOSED – Yay or Nay?

(USNewsMag.com) – In an effort to limit the participation of noncitizens in federal elections, Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) presented legislation on May 5 to that effect.

The ‘Protecting American Voters Act,’ co-sponsored by Republican Representatives Michael Burgess (TX), Matt Rosendale (MT), and Pete Sessions (TX), would provide state authorities with the tools they need to conduct citizenship verification throughout the voter registration process. The ‘SAVE’ system certifies the naturalization of a citizen, and the law mandates that, upon request from a state, federal agencies disclose this information to the requesting state free of charge.

The law also permits states to verify the citizenship of individuals who have registered as voters already, enabling election officials to remove noncitizens from voter registers.

The measure mandates that, upon request, DHS furnish states with information on the citizenship status of registrants. When requested, states may get data on their residents who were born in the US from Social Security.

The DHS could disclose such facts in the past, but they did so only when they felt like it, and the SSA wasn’t allowed to share information on problems related to election integrity.

Some noncitizens manage to get around the law and cast ballots in federal elections. According to a 2022 audit of Georgia’s voter registration lists, 1,634 individuals who are not legal US residents registered for the vote.

To combat illegal immigration, Roy previously proposed H.R. 29, the ‘Border Safety and Security Act,’ which mandated that the DHS either reject asylum claimants or jail them indefinitely for adjudication.

Since Joe Biden has been in office, illegal immigration has dramatically increased. Over 2.3 million people tried to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in FY2022, and over 1 million did so between October 2022 and February 2023, according to data compiled by U.S. CBP.

Many Americans are concerned about the country’s ability to handle an anticipated flood of migrants once Trump’s Title 42, which was designed to remove illegal immigrants, expires on May 11. To address these issues, the House GOP unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would reform asylum, increase border patrol, and build a wall.