The Left’s Noncitizen Voting Gambit

Last Sunday, Jen Psaki — having retired from her position as a Biden mouthpiece in the White House in favor of a more glamorous, better-paid position as a Biden mouthpiece on MSNBC — took to the airwaves to denounce the most recent dangerous right-wing conspiracy theory: noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. Blasting the SAVE Act — a new GOP bill that would “requir[e] proof of citizenship for voter registration” — as “the latest chapter in the MAGA effort to spread doubt about the integrity of our elections,” Psaki scoffed:

[Republicans] were introducing a bill at that press conference that criminalizes something that is already very illegal: noncitizens voting in federal elections. But more notable than some completely unnecessary legislation — and the press conference accompanying it — is the narrative they’re trying to push.… The Speaker of the House and his fellow Republicans are falsely claiming that millions of noncitizens illegally vote.

MSNBC’s @jrpsaki claims illegal immigrants voting in elections is a right-wing “conspiracy theory” that Republicans will weaponize if Trump loses in Nov:

“That’s crazy! That theory is not only false and racist and dangerous…” pic.twitter.com/dd20qFg8Np

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 12, 2024

It is true that, under existing law, it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal U.S. elections — for now. But to say something is “illegal” in principle is not the same as saying it is prohibited in practice. (Just ask the millions of ostensibly “illegal immigrants” flooding across the southern border how much they were inhibited by the technical meaning of unenforced U.S. immigration laws.) As Sen. Mike Lee, one of the cosponsors of the SAVE Act, wrote in the Federalist on Monday:

Those making this argument [that noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal] ignore a glaring problem: the government officials who register voters and conduct federal elections aren’t allowed to require proof of citizenship.

It’s therefore shockingly easy for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, leaving our elections dangerously vulnerable to foreign interference. Anyone — even an illegal alien or other noncitizen — can register to vote in federal elections, just by checking a box and signing a form.

This is all on the honor system. No proof of citizenship is required.

If noncitizens voting in federal U.S. elections is as baseless a claim as Democrats say, then surely there’s no harm in passing the SAVE Act — just to be extra sure. But don’t hold out hope for overwhelming bipartisan support.

Some of the Left’s opposition to the SAVE Act, to be fair, is simply the result of rank partisanship: It’s a Republican bill and thus the subject of immediate suspicion — another right-wing attempt to demonize immigrants, or undermine trust in our elections, and so on. But it’s also true, in spite of Psaki’s smirking dismissal, that there is underway a concerted effort across the country to weaken citizenship requirements and open up our elections to noncitizen voters.

In some of the largest cities in the country, left-wing activists have pushed for — and, in many cases, successfully secured — noncitizen voting rights in local and municipal elections: Oakland, California; San Francisco, California; the District of Columbia; Burlington, Vermont; New York City, New York; and numerous others have all approved such measures over the course of the past few years. (Although New York’s law was overturned in court after being passed.) The ranks of newly enfranchised non-American voters are not insubstantial. As a 2023 analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies noted, “over 42,000 non-citizens, including perhaps 20,000 illegal immigrants,” can now vote in elections in D.C. alone. In San Francisco, local leaders recently went so far as to appoint a noncitizen to sit on the city’s election oversight board.

If there is a limiting principle here, Democrats have yet to articulate it. If it is good and just to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, why would it be acceptable to prevent them from voting in federal ones? The idea that this will somehow stop at the municipal level defies the logic of the initiative itself. Once we’ve accepted, as a premise, that anyone who happens to reside in America should be able to vote in American elections, the inevitable conclusion is that they should be able to vote in all elections. Anything else is incoherent.

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