Illegal voting by non-citizens is rare, but Republicans are making it a major issue in the 2024 election

By David A. Lieb, Associated Press

Only U.S. citizens will be allowed to vote in this fall's presidential election and other top offices. This is nothing new, but the ability of noncitizens to register or vote has received a lot of attention recently.

Because of the influx of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, Republicans have expressed concern that noncitizens might also vote and have taken measures in many states to prevent this possibility, although it is rare for noncitizens to actually vote.

GOP officials have audited voter rolls, issued executive orders and placed constitutional amendments on state ballots to prevent noncitizens from voting. Some Democrats claim the measures could create hurdles for legal voters, are unnecessary and lead people to view the problem of noncitizens voting as bigger than it really is.

What does the law say?

A US law from 1996 prohibits non-citizens from participating in presidential or congressional elections. Violations can be punished with fines and prison sentences of up to one year. Deportation is also possible.

When someone registers to vote, they confirm under oath that they are a U.S. citizen. Federal law requires states to regularly update their voter rolls and remove all non-voters from the register. This could help identify immigrants living in the country illegally.

None of the state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many states have laws prohibiting noncitizens from running for state offices such as governor or attorney general. However, some municipalities in California, Maryland, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections, such as for school board and city council.

What does the data say?

Voting by noncitizens is rare, but Republican politicians have pointed out that voter registration checks have included potential noncitizens.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said last week that more than 6,500 potential noncitizens have been purged from Texas' voter rolls since 2021, including 1,930 with “voter history” forwarded by the attorney general's office for investigation. Texas has nearly 18 million registered voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in August that he had subjected to possible prosecution 138 apparent noncitizens who voted in a recent election, as well as 459 others who registered but did not vote. Those numbers were higher than audits from previous years, but represented only a small fraction of Ohio's more than 8 million registered voters.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, recently announced that 3,251 people previously classified as noncitizens by the federal government will be placed inactive on the state's voter rolls. They will then have to show proof of citizenship and fill out a form to vote in November. There are more than 3 million registered voters in Alabama.

In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found that between 1997 and 2022, 1,634 potential noncitizens attempted to register to vote, although election officials flagged them and none were registered. Georgia registered millions of other voters during that time.

Some electoral administration experts have said that review of voter lists shows that current tools for identifying foreign voters are working.

What do the courts say?

Arizona is a case study in Republicans' long-standing attempts to ban noncitizens from voting.

Under an initiative passed by voters in 2004, Arizona required a driver's license, birth certificate, passport or similar document to be approved for state voter registration. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship to vote in state elections.

The state responded by creating two classes of voters. For state and local elections, voters must show proof of citizenship when registering or file it with the state. But because this cannot be required for presidential and congressional elections, tens of thousands of voters who have not shown proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.

An order issued in August by the divided U.S. Supreme Court requires voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” to be rejected by Arizona counties while litigation over the law continues. Voters can register for presidential and congressional elections using a different federal form that requires voters to swear they are citizens without requiring proof, under penalty of perjury.

What is on the ballot?

In eight states, Republican-led legislatures have proposed constitutional amendments on their November ballots that would allow only citizens to vote.

Proposals in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin would replace existing constitutional provisions that say “any” citizen or “all” citizens may vote with new language saying “only” citizens may vote. Supporters argue that the current language does not necessarily exclude noncitizens from voting.

In Idaho and Kentucky, the proposed changes would explicitly state that “no person who is not a citizen of the United States” may vote. A similar formulation was approved by voters in Louisiana two years ago.

Voters in North Dakota, Colorado, Alabama, Florida and Ohio passed legislative changes between 2018 and 2022 that limit the right to vote to citizens “only.”

What else are states doing?

Although noncitizen voting is already prohibited under the state constitution, Louisiana's Republican governor, Jeff Landry, continues to draw attention to the issue. He recently signed an executive order requiring state agencies that issue voter registration forms to include a written disclaimer stating that noncitizens are prohibited from voting.

In the US state of Georgia, Raffensperger last week demanded that all polling stations display a sign in English and Spanish informing non-citizens that voting is illegal.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, citing a “significant growth in the noncitizen population” in his state, set up a special email account on Wednesday to report suspected election law violations.

In Wisconsin, Republicans have filed two similar lawsuits in recent weeks challenging the state's process for verifying whether a registered voter is a citizen. The lawsuits seek court orders requiring the election commission to conduct checks to ensure there are no registered voters who are not citizens.

Republicans in North Carolina have sued the state election board, accusing it of failing to enforce a new law aimed at removing people from the voter rolls who request an exemption from jury duty because they are not citizens.

Tennessee's top elections office sent letters in June asking more than 14,000 registered voters for proof of citizenship, but those who did not respond were not barred from voting. The list was based on data from the state's Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which has information on whether residents were U.S. citizens when they first contacted the department.

What has Congress done?

Republicans in Congress are pushing a bill known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration. During a press conference on the bill this year, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson did not give specific examples of noncitizens voting, but stressed that it was a cause for concern.

“We all know instinctively that many illegal immigrants vote in federal elections,” he said, “but that is not easy to prove.”

The bill passed the Republican-led House of Representatives in July along largely party lines, but did not come to a vote in the Democratic-led Senate. The Biden administration said it was strongly opposed and that laws against non-citizen voting rights would work.

“This bill would do nothing to secure our elections, but it would make it significantly more difficult for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters will be purged from the voter rolls,” the White House said in a statement.

Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.