It’s that time again. The last act of Congress is funding the federal government Expires on September 30. So, unless Congress passes new funding legislation by then, most of the government will shut down.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Activated by the House Freedom Caucus and by Former President Donald TrumpThe deadline is said to be used to force through legislation that would make it harder to register to vote in all 50 states.
Johnson plans to attach a bill to fund the government for six months to a Republican bill called the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” or the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.”Save Act,” requiring new voters to submit “documents of United States citizenship,” such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote.
There is no evidence that noncitizens vote in any meaningful numbers in U.S. federal elections, and states generally have safeguards in place to prevent them from doing so. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, for example, Claims to identify 1,634 “potential non-citizens”. Those who tried to register during the 15-year period. But these potential non-citizens were caught by election officials and never registered. In 2020, About 5 million Georgians voted In the presidential election.
More broadly, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “Illegal registration and voting attempts by noncitizens are routinely investigated and prosecuted by appropriate state authorities, and have There is no evidence that non-citizens try to vote Significant enough to influence the outcome of any election.
Although noncitizen voting—which is, of course, illegal—has never been proven to influence an election, there is evidence that reservation laws can influence elections. This is very clear from Arizona, which already has regimes like the SAVE Act Data from Arizona suggests that the state’s law has made it somewhat harder for people of color, a group that tends to skew Democratic, to vote. And at least one analysis of Arizona voter data suggests the SAVE Act might Suppress voter registration among other groups that tend to vote Democrats: College student. So the bill could make it a little harder for Democrats to win elections.
That said, the SAVE Act contains a vague provision that allows voters to “not provide” to submit other proof of their citizenship and provides that state or local officials shall “determine whether the applicant has sufficiently established United States citizenship. .”
It’s unclear, exactly, what that means.
Significantly, conservation laws will shall take effect immediately if enacted by CongressAnd it imposes significant new administrative burdens on state and local election offices. So, if the law comes into effect two months before a presidential election, it is likely to throw that election into disarray.
Realistically, that outcome is unlikely. Axios reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) the opposition Continued funding for the US government contingent on passing the SAVE Act. Most Democrats and President Joe Biden also oppose the bill.
Still, the battle over the SAVE Act could put the U.S. in danger of a government shutdown. And while it’s unlikely to become law within the next two months, it’s likely to be on the short list of bills that Republicans will be eager to enact if they win this November’s election.
How will the SAVE Act affect the US election?
If the SAVE Act becomes law, it will likely have little effect on the outcome of the election — although even a small change in who is allowed to vote could potentially flip a very close election, especially in swing states. On its face, the bill addresses a non-issue — again, there are no legitimate concerns about noncitizen voting in the United States. And most voters have some documentation they can use to register under the SAVE Act.
Still, Arizona offers a useful window into what voting under the SAVE Act might look like In 2004, the state enacted a Conservation Act-like law requiring new voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship to register. This law, however, conflicts with a federal law that requires states to register voters who submit a standardized federal form. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona could not prevent voters from registering to vote in federal elections using this form.
Arizona, however, responded to the decision by creating a second tier of voters Arizona voters who submit federal forms without documentary proof of citizenship are allowed to vote in federal elections (for Congress and President), but not in state elections.
Arizona data show that non-white voters (those who prefer Democrats over Republicans) are more likely to be registered as federal-only voters than white voters. But college students seem to be the most affected by Arizona’s two-tiered rule.
A report by VoteBeat, a news outlet that reports on election administration, found that most Arizona voting precincts have fewer than a dozen total federal-only voters. But, “among a dozen outliers, including more than 300 federal-only voters,” Votebeat reports that “All but one are located at least partially on college campuses” One exception was a Phoenix precinct that included a homeless shelter.
This conclusion is intuitive. College students who leave home to earn their degrees often don’t bring their passports or birth certificates with them to school, so they’re unable to submit them when they register to vote. (People without permanent housing are also unlikely to have immediate access to these documents because they have no home to store them.)
In a close election, a law disenfranchising many college students may be unethical.
In the razor-thin 2000 election, for example, official tallies showed that President George W. Bush Florida won the key state by 537 votes. Meanwhile, Florida University alone Enrolls approximately 35,000 undergraduates.
So, while the Preservation Act would do little to address the problem of noncitizen voting fraud, it would at least have some effect on US elections.
