Don’t expect the feckless U.S. Senate to deliver on an essential elections integrity bill. That would take actually showing up for work.
But even if the GOP majority by some miracle grows a collective spine and does all in its power to pass the SAVE America Act, securing our elections borders will require more than legislation, so say the proponents of House Resolution 152.
‘A Common Sense Proposal’
The voter verification bill that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his merry band of milquetoast men and women have been pretending to fight for is just that — a bill. A Congress with a Democrat governing trifecta could and would undo the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification to cast a ballot in federal elections.
But an amendment to the Constitution …
“[E]nsures that no matter what happens in Washington or at the state level, federal elections will remain reserved for United States citizens,”said Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., who introduced the bill about the same time Senate Republican leadership opened their failure theater show on the SAVE Act.
The joint resolution would make clear via constitutional amendment that ONLY U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in elections for president, vice president, and members of Congress. Inserting the language would “close a longstanding constitutional gap and ensuring a uniform national standard,” the resolution’s backers say.
“It’s simple: only Americans should vote in American elections,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said in a press release. “Congresswoman Lee’s amendment is a common sense proposal that creates a uniform, nationwide standard that will protect federal elections permanently.”
‘I Want It in Writing’
Americans for Citizen Voting, a nonpartisan organization devoted to doing what its name suggests, has been preaching the urgency of changing state constitutions around the country. The group has led several successful state referenda strengthening constitutional language to ensure only citizens are allowed to vote in state and local elections. Voters have overwhelmingly supported the ballot issues because the issue is extremely popular with the vast majority of Americans.
Avi Fortenberry, president of Americans for Citizen Voting, says there is a glaring “loophole” in the U.S. Constitution that would open the door to illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals voting in federal elections, particularly in blue states where noncitizens already have the right to cast ballots in local elections.
“One of the things that surprised me most is that a lot of Americans don’t realize that right now, where we currently stand, the constitution does not explicitly say that only a U.S. citizen can vote in federal elections,” Fortenberry told me on a recent episode of The Federalist Radio Hour podcast.
Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution and its 17th Amendment grant authority to the states in determining who is eligible to vote in their elections. Fortenberry said a state that grants noncitizens the right to vote in state elections could very well provide the same suffrage in federal elections.
“Call me old fashioned but I believe federal elections deserve constitutional clarity, and the fact is we don’t have that right now. Period. End of story,” the election integrity advocate said. “So you can argue that it’s implied. Great, I want it in writing. And isn’t that ultimately what the constitution is about?”
“This country wasn’t founded on the honor system. We wrote it all down and that’s what the law of the land is,” Fortenberry added.
The honor system is precisely what the dopes in Congress and then-President Bill Clinton gave us in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Instead of documentary proof of citizenship, like the SAVE America Act would demand, individuals need only check a box to prove citizenship. That gaping hole in election integrity is what the Democrats who vehemently oppose voter verification — in opposition to many in their own party — insist is a wall against noncitizens voting in U.S. elections.
‘Upend Federal Elections’
One thing couldn’t be any more clear: The Democratic Party, steered by radical leftists, is planting for a longterm harvest of foreign national voters.
Two months before the 2024 presidential election, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, released a 36-page report titled, “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Noncitizen Voting.” It detailed the scope of the Biden administration-facilitated invasion, four years of millions of illegal immigrants pouring through U.S. borders like a flood. The report drove home what the administration had in mind: “fundamentally remaking America.”
“More specifically, it analyzes how the massive influx of illegal aliens under this administration on top of the millions of noncitizens already living in the United States could upend Federal elections for years to come,” Roy said during a House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government hearing.
He noted that the foreign-born population had hit a record 50 million-plus, or 15.6 percent of the total population. Noncitizens, Roy said, made up about 60 percent of that population, based on “conservative estimates.”
Roy’s prediction came true.
“Noncitizens will vote in the 2024 election because our system not only makes it easy to do but incentivizes doing so,” said the congressman, now running to become the next attorney general of Texas.
State elections officials have since uncovered the names of thousands of noncitizens on the nation’s voter rolls, and multiple investigations and prosecutions of noncitizens voting in 2024 keep hitting the headlines.
‘Those Who Pretend It Doesn’t Exist’
A 2014 study from researchers at Old Dominion and George Mason universities found that 3 percent of noncitizens reported voting in the 2010 election.
The study reported this stunning finding:
“We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.”
As expected, the “most secure election in America history” crowd pounced on the findings. That’s impossible, they said. The authors of the 2014 study stood by the research, noting the mistakes in their critics’ conclusions. Election integrity deniers like the leftist Brennan Center have furiously attacked the study, in some cases using information wasteland Snopes’ erroneous “fact-checking” article in an attempt to debunk it.
Jesse Richman, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Old Dominion and lead author of the study, reiterated in a 2023 report that his critics were wrong. One of the more highly credentialed political scientists in the country, Richman has blasted both Democrats and Republicans for misrepresenting the study’s numbers.
“I have publicly criticized those who make excessive claims about the prevalence of non-citizen voting. I have also publicly criticized those who pretend it doesn’t exist,” Richman wrote.
Uphill Battle
With millions of illegal immigrants pouring into the United States in the Biden years, the problem of noncitizens on the voter rolls certainly isn’t going away.
Supporters of the constitutional amendment say only an language spelling out who can vote in U.S. elections will keep foreign nationals off the voter rolls and out of the polling stations.
“Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and that begins with a simple principle: only American citizens should decide American elections,” Rep. Mike Haridopolos said in the press release. “Only the Constitution can guarantee that protection long-term.”
Fortenberry acknowledges amending the U.S. Constitution will be a lot more difficult than changing state constitutions. For the proposal to survive, two-thirds of the House and Senate would have to pass it, then the proposed amendment would have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states. Ratification is possible in the states, but getting any congressional Democrats on board to support the change is as likely as Bernie Sanders pledging his undying love for capitalism. That’s because congressional Democrats want noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections.
“Honestly, I don’t believe that it’s out of the question,” an optimistic Fortenberry said. “I think a lot of American people are looking more for what things do we have in common versus what types of things divide us.”
