Republicans in a number of states are pushing for federal laws to handle noncitizen voting, one thing they insist is an pressing matter requiring intervention on the highest ranges of the federal government. However the issue does probably not exist and is a smokescreen for guidelines, rules, and practices that assist Republicans win elections.
Earlier this week, 12 of the state chairs for the right-wing State Freedom Caucus Community despatched a letter to congressional leaders pushing for passage of the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.” The legislation, proposed by Republicans, purports to shut loopholes permitting for noncitizen voting.
“The states continue to face the prospect of a huge population of noncitizens illegally voting in our elections and potentially affecting the outcome,” the letter alleges. “We must close the loopholes that put the integrity of our elections at risk. We need the SAVE Act to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in U.S. elections.”
That is false.
First, it’s already unlawful for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. If a noncitizen even registers to vote, they might withstand 5 years in jail. In a examine carried out by the left-leaning Brennan Middle for Justice, researchers may discover solely 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting within the 2016 election, comprising 0.0001% of votes that had been forged in these jurisdictions. That quantity contains solely potential noncitizen votes—not instances which were investigated and decided to be ineligible.
Not solely is noncitizen voting extraordinarily uncommon, it’s additionally not coordinated by any teams in a method to systematically management the outcomes of elections.
Moreover, civil rights teams have known as the SAVE Act “unnecessary and dangerous,” and stated it “is intended to elicit irrational fear of the growing number of citizens of color.”
However the concern is simply one of many newest methods Donald Trump and different Republican officers are fearmongering round immigration. Equally, right-wing media shops, like Fox Information and Newsmax, have made tales in regards to the purported drawback a staple of their programming.
Selling these lies creates an atmosphere the place voter-suppression legal guidelines and rules can thrive. When these guidelines are in place, eligible voters have then been barred from voting, and ceaselessly when election turnout is low, that has favored the political fortunes of the Republican Social gathering (however it’s not the case in each election).
Noncitizen voting can also be a handy boogeyman for the precise. Conservative concepts and candidates are sometimes unpopular, however as a substitute of confronting this lack of enchantment, the precise can merely blame noncitizens—a inhabitants they demonize anyway—for his or her loss. Trump did this in 2017, when he falsely claimed that his popular-vote loss to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was the fault of undocumented immigrants.
Campaigning towards an imaginary wave of noncitizen voting serves many functions for the precise: It rallies supporters towards migrants, it pushes legal guidelines that assist Republicans, and it excuses Republican losses in elections. The core concern is made up, however the results are sadly very actual.
