Ensuring Trust in Elections

Over recent years, trust in elections among the American electorate has been in decline. The Trump Administration has expressed a commitment to better secure the vote, and has taken an initial step in this direction with moves to prevent non-citizens from voting in federal elections.

The President asked Congress earlier this year to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the house back in April. The SAVE Act would enshrine strict verification of voters’ citizenship into federal law. However, it still sits awaiting consideration by the Senate. With some 70 percent of Americans supporting such a measure, this should not be a hard decision.

While election legislation primarily rests with the states, there has long been a role for the federal government in protecting the rights of voters and ensuring trustworthy elections, including around who can vote. In the absence of the SAVE Act, the states will be left with a patchwork of procedures, some less effective than others, to keep non-citizens from voting. Thus, the time has come for the Senate to get in gear and pass the SAVE Act.

The SAVE Act if signed into law would require states to collect and document proof of citizenship from each voter, in the form of a birth certificate, passport, naturalization documentation, or other proof. In the case of a name change not reflected on these documents, such as due to marriage, the voter would have to document the name change.

These requirements would not apply to voters who are already registered at their current place of residence. They would not have to present proof of citizenship unless and until their current registration expires (such as through inactivity or because they move out-of-state.)

The SAVE Act would provide for criminal penalties on election officials who allow illegal voting. It also stipulates that states must conduct voter list maintenance activities to identify potential non-citizen voters and remove them from the voter rolls.

Critics of the bill, mostly on the Democrat side of the aisle, argue in unison that such a law is unnecessary because existing law prohibits non-citizens from voting. However, enforcement, unsurprisingly, occasionally falls short. There have been multiple observed instances of non-citizen voting. Many more cases may have gone undetected. The risk of a close election being determined by some non-citizens slipping through the cracks is not something the American people should be expected to bear.

A compelling case in point is a 2014 article published in the academic journal Electoral Studies. The study found evidence that “some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes.”

Prior to the 2014 election, North Carolina identified 1,454 registrants on the voter roll who were not citizens, as reported by the Public Interest Legal Foundation. A particularly notorious recent case is that of Ian Andre Roberts, an immigrant illegally in the U.S. with an extensive criminal background, who became an Iowa school superintendent and was discovered this year to have been registered to vote in Maryland.

The effectiveness of current verification efforts vary by state and with the channel or procedure used to register. With registrations that rely on an affidavit connected to citizenship attestation without any checking against DMV data, the risk that a noncitizen might slip through the cracks increases. During a third-party voter registration drive, for instance, a noncitizen could be given a registration form and then proceed to check the citizenship box and sign the affidavit, whether knowingly or not.

Some states allow same-day registration and voting at the polls, which arguably entails the greatest level of risk. Registration forms submitted in advance of casting a ballot allow time for verification using the SAVE system and other systems. But same-day registration, hypothetically at least, could open the flood gates to bad-faith actors falsifying their eligibility right at the time of the election.

For their part, opponents to the law have also expressed the view that the SAVE Act would pointlessly complicate registration for all citizens. As aforementioned name changes, such as for new spouses, can add yet more inconvenience to the process.

The requirements of the SAVE Act, however, are no more burdensome than what takes place in other important contexts requiring a similar degree of verification, such as obtaining a bank account or a passport. Furthermore, no action would be required from currently registered voters unless and until their current registration lapses or they relocate.

Admittedly, it is а grey area for implementation of the SAVE act whether voters would need to verify citizenship records again when relocating to another state. It should suffice to verify citizenship records only once provided these records are transferable across states. Thus, a modest caveat is that steps should be taken to remove this potential additional burden by establishing a process through which the initial citizenship verification can become a permanent record, transferable across states.

Another modest caveat that voters who had been registered without proving citizenship and who have recently relocated may find themselves under a tight deadline for collecting the required documents prior to getting registered again. But this burden could be mitigated by allowing for a grace period for such voters, granting them some leeway past the deadline.

To conclude, there are sufficient reasons for documenting proof of citizenship to justify adding any modest “complication” to the registration process. That is why the Senate must follow through and do what is right by passing the SAVE Act. In a time when the legitimacy of America’s elections has come under question for various reasons, citizenship verification is a crucial first step.

READ MORE:

The Filibuster Must Be Euthanized Now

SCOTUS Must Stop Mail-In Voting Madness

Iowa Does Not Need ‘Revolutionary’ Election Changes That Violate Voters’ Associational Rights

Andrew Calem-Mandujano, is co-founder and managing director of UnrivaledPolitics.com, which specializes in data analytics and commentary related to elections and political issues.  He is a graduate of Penn State University and a Python programmer and foreign languages afficionado.