The Biden administration came out swinging against a bill that seeks to strengthen current law allowing only American citizens to participate in federal elections.
The White House said it “strongly opposes” the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act in a formal statement released Monday. The White House statement ripped the GOP-led bill for allegedly being based on “easily disproven falsehoods” and claimed that laws are already in place to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections.
“This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls,” the White House stated. “The evidence is clear that the current laws to prevent noncitizen voting are working as intended — it is extraordinarily rare for noncitizens to break the law by voting in Federal elections.”
The White House instead encouraged Republican lawmakers to support the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, led by Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy and co-sponsored by dozens of other House Republicans, would require states to obtain proof of citizenship in person when registering anyone to vote and require states to remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls, according to a press release.
“I’m honored to be in the crosshairs of the White House — This administration is clearly not interested in safeguarding American citizen’s right to vote,” Roy said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is about political power.”
Nineteen non-citizens from various different countries were prosecuted and convicted in North Carolina for illegally voting in multiple state elections, according to documented cases compiled by Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky and recently presented to the House Administration Committee. In another example, roughly 10,000 to 20,000 non-citizens were registered to vote by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation over two decades, according to von Spakovsky.
Featured Image Credit: CBP Photo by Jerry Glaser
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