My VIP for this week is Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) who is seeking to add stricter requirements in his bill to ban noncitizens from voting in federal elections. In her article published at The Deseret News, Cami Mondeaux reported that “nearly every Republican senator has signed on to co-sponsor the legislation.”
Lee
filed an update to his Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act on
Thursday evening, renaming it to the SAVE America Act and including additional
language to require pho ID as a requirement to vote. The name change came as a suggestion
from President Donald Trump, Lee said, which he called “aptly named.”
“The
SAVE America Act makes our original SAVE Act better. President Trump rightly
believes we should include Voter ID in this bill as we make a renewed push to
secure our elections and protect the rights of American voters,” Lee said in a
joint statement with Rep. Chip Roy, who leads the legislation in the House. “By
requiring Voter ID and proof-of-citizenship, the SAVE America Act will ensure
that our federal elections are decided by U.S. citizens – and U.S. citizens
alone.”
Lee
introduced the original SAVE Act in the Senate last year, and the bill already
passed the House in a bipartisan vote. However, the bill has yet to be
considered in the Senate, prompting Lee to launch a pressure campaign earlier
this month to schedule a vote….
The
SAVE America Act would implement proof-of-citizenship requirements in order to
vote in federal elections, requiring voters to provide identification that is
compliant with the most recent REAL ID guidelines, a passport, or some other
citizenship document. For any identification card that does not include
birthplace or citizenship status, the voter must also provide a birth
certificate, a naturalization certificate, an adoption decree, or some document
that proves he or she was born in the United States.
The
most recent iteration would add language requiring voters to “present an eligible
photo identification document before voting,” a measure that was raised by
House Republican leaders earlier this month.
The
bill has already been endorsed by Trump, and the president has posted several
times on social media pushing for a vote.
It’s
already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and can lead to
felony charges or deportation. Such instances of noncitizens voting are rare
and often done by mistake, according to recent studies.
Still,
Trump made election integrity a key priority for his second administration,
even going so far as signing a sweeping executive order last year that included
a citizenship requirement.
More
than 9% of voters in the U.S. do not have citizenship documents on hand,
amounting to about 21.3 million people, according to a report from the Brennan
Center for Justice. That can especially affect married women who changed their
last names, the study shows.
Lee
and other Republicans have pushed back on that assertion, arguing the SAVE Act
would provide “multiple ways” to prove one’s citizenship.
