As the Nov. 5 Election Day approaches, the threat of illegal voting by noncitizens looms large. Democrats say that’s impossible, because it’s “already illegal for noncitizens to vote.” Yes. It is. And bank robbery, exceeding the speed limit, murder, and crossing the U.S. border without proper documentation — all of those things are “already illegal,” and yet people do those things anyway.
Federal statutes are responsible for much of the chaos when it comes to ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in our elections. The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) was construed by the U.S. Supreme Court more than a decade ago to preclude states from requiring documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote using the federal voter registration form (which all but six states are required to “accept and use”).
The Biden-Harris Department of Justice is now suing Alabama and Virginia for removing noncitizens from the states’ voter rolls, citing (wrongly) the NVRA’s list maintenance provisions as prohibiting the removal of noncitizen registrations in the 90 days preceding an election. The DOJ is wrong on the law because the NVRA was not intended to apply to registrations that were never valid in the first place. The administration’s lawsuits merely confirm that Democrats view illegals and noncitizens as a key component of their political base.
It is not just the NVRA that is problematic: the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to confirm the identity and residency of any applicant seeking to register to vote in any state.
