Democrats appear to be panicking over Speaker Mike Johnson’s reported plan to link a provision requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration to a government funding bill. On Thursday, The New York Times took to distorting the facts to deflect from the very real problem of a vulnerable federal voter registration system that Democrats refuse to address.
Punchbowl News reported earlier this week that Johnson plans to introduce a continuing resolution (CR) that includes the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This legislation would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and require prospective voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register.
While it’s technically already illegal for noncitizens to register to vote (or vote) in federal elections, the only thing standing between them and making it onto the voter roll is a small square box on the federal registration form that requires applicants to attest to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury.
Such a move on Johnson’s part has received almost immediate pushback from Democrats. Axios reported on Wednesday that “three senior Democratic sources” say “they expect a full whip operation against the GOP spending bill,” with Democrats in battleground districts likely to “face considerable pressure from their party not to break ranks.”
President Joe Biden previously expressed opposition to the SAVE Act, claiming the “justification for this bill is based on easily disproven falsehoods.” When the House of Representatives voted on the SAVE Act in July, only five Democrats (Texas Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez Jr, North Carolina Rep. Don Davis, Maine Rep. Jared Golden, and Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez) voted alongside Republicans in favor of preventing noncitizens from registering to vote.
The New York Times (NYT) on Thursday began echoing the reported party line, publishing a lengthy piece of propaganda demonizing conservative efforts to prevent noncitizens from voting. The paper reported that a “surge of activity” including the SAVE Act has been “raising a range of concerns.”
“Republicans Seize on False Theories About Immigrant Voting,” the headline for the piece by the Times’ Alexandra Berzon reads (without explicit clarification that “immigrant voting” in and of itself is not necessarily the same as always-illegal noncitizen voting).
Why are Democrats and their media mouthpieces at the Times and Axios so afraid of the GOP plan to keep noncitizens from voting in American elections?
Berzon even concedes in her piece that noncitizen voting and registration does happen.
“There is no indication that noncitizens are voting in large numbers,” Berzon writes, but she acknowledges “[s]tate audits and studies from groups across the political spectrum have repeatedly found that a relatively small number of noncitizens make it onto voter rolls.” It’s a similar admission The Associated Press (AP) made weeks ago, with Ali Swenson writing that while noncitizen voting is not happening “in significant numbers…there have been cases over the years of noncitizens illegally registering and even casting ballots.”
Under the current system, dozens of noncitizens have made their way onto voter rolls — and some have even cast a vote. For example, 41 noncitizens cast a ballot in 2016 in North Carolina — as Berzon also notes — and it was revealed in 2019 that Pennsylvania found 11,198 noncitizens on its voter rolls.
“Republicans argue that even one illegal vote is too many,” Berzon says, without making a convincing argument to the contrary.
That’s why Republicans introduced the SAVE Act, which Berzon only refers to once (and not by name), noting it may be attached to the CR. But her accusations that Republican attempts to keep noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections amount to “echoes of Jim Crow-era practices” reveal how terrified the Democrat Party is of the proposal.