Reuters finds 30,000 noncitizens on voter rolls since 2000 as Lee demands Senate act on SAVE America Act
A Reuters investigation found more than 30,000 self-declared noncitizens landed on U.S. voter rolls over a quarter-century, and Sen. Mike Lee says the Senate's refusal to pass his proof-of-citizenship bill is the reason it keeps happening.Lee, a Utah Republican, took the Senate floor Wednesday to confront members of both parties who have stalled the SAVE America Act, the voter-integrity bill he introduced earlier this year. His catalyst: a Reuters report published the same day documenting erroneous noncitizen registrations across eleven states, from California and Illinois to Texas and Pennsylvania.
The report identified the problem in both red and blue states, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia round out the list, and attributed the registrations to "software glitches and clerical errors" rather than any organized scheme to register illegal immigrants.
Reuters also acknowledged that its numbers are not precise because "state data is often tentative and subject to revision," and the wire service said it could not determine how many of those noncitizens actually cast ballots.
None of that softened Lee's argument. He told colleagues the data proved a point he and other conservatives have pressed for years.
The SAVE America Act, which Lee introduced earlier this year, would require registrants to verify their citizenship and eligibility at the time of registration. It would also mandate voter ID and photo identification at the polls.
The bill cleared the House but has stalled in the Senate, where resistance has come from Democrats and, Lee indicated, some Republicans as well. President Donald Trump supports the legislation.
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US states may have added more than 30,000 self-declared non-citizens to the nation’s voter rolls since 2000 because of software glitches and clerical errors made while processing their driver's license and state ID applications, according to official records reviewed by Reuters.
ReplyDeleteThe cases expose weaknesses in voter registration systems across a dozen US states governed by both Democrats and Republicans, but at numbers that experts said were too small relative to the country’s more than 170 million registered voters to impact elections. Reuters was not able to determine how many of these non-citizens actually cast a ballot.
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So it's a state problem not a voter problem. A problem that can and should be fixed by the states and their voter registration systems but one that is not significant enough to impact elections.