Just two weeks away from President-elect Donald Trump taking office, congressional Republicans have introduced a bill to stop noncitizens from registering to vote or casting a ballot in U.S. elections.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) reintroduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 22) for consideration in the 119th Congress, with Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.). The bill has 60 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the companion legislation in the Senate.

“American elections belong to American citizens, and the public’s confidence in those elections is the cornerstone of our republic,” said Roy in an email sent to The Washington Stand. “We in Congress have a duty to our fellow citizens to provide that confidence and put concrete enforcement in place to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country.”

The SAVE Act would require government officials to verify that anyone registering to vote is a U.S. citizen by obtaining photo identification in person. It also requires states to remove noncitizens from the voting rolls.

A supermajority (84%) of Americans favor requiring voters to present a photo ID before they cast a ballot, and 83% are in favor of “requiring people who are registering to vote for the first time to provide proof of citizenship.” A mere 15% of Americans oppose each measure, according to the Gallup poll released last October.

“A vast majority of our countrymen agree: Only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections. The SAVE Act gives states the ability to prevent illegal voter registration and protect the ballot box from foreign election interference,” said Lee. “Public trust in the integrity of our elections is absolutely essential for the legitimacy of our democratic institutions.”

The Clinton-era National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or “Motor-Voter law,” demands that all 50 states offer to register anyone who signs up for a driver’s license to vote. Although the federal form asks voters if they are U.S. citizens, a court order prevents officials from asking for proof of citizenship, essentially taking their word on the honor system. In March 2021, the Biden-Harris administration issued Executive Order 14109 expanding voter registration to any office where people sign up for taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.

The addresses on file with these agencies have been used to mail absentee ballots to casinos, strip clubs, and bars in Nevada.

The House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act with bipartisan support last July 10, 221-198. Five Democrats voted for the election integrity bill: Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. President Biden threatened to veto the bill, which never reached his desk.

“Why oppose a bill to stop non-citizens from voting in U.S. elections? Yes, it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. But that law has become impossible to enforce due to a combination of court rulings,” said Lee on the social media platform X. “The SAVE Act would fix that.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) attached the SAVE Act to a continuing resolution (CR) in September, but House members defeated the bill by a vote of 202-220. Roy accurately predicted that if Congress did not ratify the “CR + SAVE,” it would result in “a lame duck continuing resolution before Christmas and walking away from” election integrity until the new year. 

The problem of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections has flown under the radar, often with the legacy media dismissing it as a myth. But in Virginia alone, noncitizens had voted 7,474 times between 1988 and 2017, according to state officials. Experts said, if noncitizens illegally voted last November in the same proportion as in 2008, foreigners would cast between 1.5 million and 2.7 million illegal votes.

“Every illegal ballot cancels out the voice of a lawful citizen voter,” said Cleta Mitchell, founder of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, in a statement emailed to TWS. Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots Action called the SAVE Act “a powerful fix to ensure election integrity.”

At least 17 cities and municipalities have passed laws allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections:

• Oakland, California
• San Francisco, California
• Washington, D.C.
• Burlington, Vermont
• Montpelier, Vermont
• Barnesville, Maryland
• Cheverly, Maryland
• Chevy Chase (Section 3), Maryland
• Garrett Park, Maryland
• Glen Echo, Maryland
• Hyattsville, Maryland
• Martin’s Additions, Maryland
• Mount Rainier, Maryland
• Riverdale Park, Maryland
• Somerset, Maryland
• Takoma Park, Maryland
• Winooski, Vermont

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) supported efforts to allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections, adding approximately 800,000 voters alongside the U.S. citizens on the Big Apple’s voter rolls. But the state appeals court ruled that the controversial ordinance violates the New York state constitution, which states, “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election” provided he “is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election.”

“[P]laces like New York City have disregarded this standard by allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections. The SAVE Act upholds the integrity of our elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring this fundamental right is reserved exclusively for American citizens,” said Garbarino, who represents Long Island in Congress. “It’s common sense that only American citizens should decide American elections, a principle grounded in the Constitution.”

So far, 15 states prohibit noncitizens from voting in elections at any level of government:

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Florida
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Missouri
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• Wisconsin

The conservative coalition that helped promote the SAVE Act during the hostile Biden-Harris administration looks forward to working together for victory in the Trump-Vance administration. “The SAVE Act is the common-sense solution that will help restore confidence in the integrity of our electoral system, and Heritage Action urges members of Congress who support free and fair elections to support it,” said Heritage Action Executive Vice President Ryan Walker.

“I look forward to working with the Republican Senate to put this policy on President Trump’s desk,” said Roy.