Data shows that noncitizen voting is rare, and Republicans are pushing for measures to ensure this.

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.

Given the influx of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, Republicans have raised concerns that noncitizens might also vote – something that has rarely happened in the past. In Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to link an expansion of the federal government's spending powers to a proposal that would require states to require proof of citizenship when registering voters.

In several states, GOP officials have initiated audits of 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 voting in presidential or congressional elections. Violations can be punished with fines and imprisonment of up to one year. They can also face deportation.

READ MORE: Poll on the US Senate election campaign: Neck-and-neck race between Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Senator Rick Scott

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 is Congress doing? Congress must pass a stopgap bill before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 to avoid a government shutdown. At the urging of some Republicans, Johnson is trying to combine a six-month extension of government spending with a measure that would require proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote.

Johnson said Congress has a responsibility to “ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

The plan is similar to a bill Republicans pushed earlier this year known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. That bill passed the Republican-led House of Representatives in July along largely party lines but failed to reach a vote in the Democratic-led Senate.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday he opposed the Republicans' latest attempt to require proof of citizenship for voter registration, saying the interim budget should be free of “partisan changes.”

The Biden administration also opposed Republican efforts, but stressed that existing laws against non-citizen voting worked.

What does the data say? State data suggests that noncitizen voting is rare, but Republican politicians have pointed to voter registration audits that have turned up potential noncitizens.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said last month that more than 6,500 potential noncitizens had been purged from Texas' voter rolls since 2021, including 1,930 with “voter history” forwarded for investigation by the state attorney general's office. 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 the fall. 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 tried to register to vote, even though election officials flagged them, and none of them 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 offers a case study in Republicans' longstanding 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 will require voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” to be rejected by Arizona counties while litigation over the law continues. Voters will be able to register for presidential and congressional elections using a different federal form that requires voters to swear their citizenship under penalty of perjury, with no proof required.

What's on the ballot? Republican-led legislatures in eight states have proposed constitutional amendments on their November ballots that would require 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 by 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 provide voter registration forms to include a written disclaimer stating that noncitizens are prohibited from voting.

In Georgia, Raffensperger requires that every polling place post a sign in English and Spanish informing noncitizens that voting is illegal.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton cited a “significant growth in the noncitizen population” in his state and set up a special email account 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 will not be barred from voting. The list is 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.

___

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