Sen. Lee, Rep. Roy introduce bill to require proof of citizenship for voter registration

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced legislation that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Lee, and Roy announced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act to make states require documentation of a person's citizenship before registering to vote, The Daily Signal reported.

The legislation, sponsored by Lee and Roy, in the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, also requires states to to remove non-citizens from their voter rolls.

“Due to the wide-open border that the Biden administration has refused to close, practically engineered to open, we now have so many non-citizens in the country that if only one out of 100 of those voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes,” Johnson said during a press conference Wednesday.

“Since our elections are so razor thin in these days that we're in—just a few precincts in a few states decide the makeup of Congress and who is elected to the White House—this is a dangerously high number and it is a great concern to millions and millions of Americans. It could obviously change the outcome of our elections,” he added.

Johnson also mentioned that around 16 million illegal immigrants have arrived in the U.S. since President Joe Biden took office.

Illegal immigrants are prohibited from voting in federal elections but there are not preventative measures in place to keep them from registering to vote, the speaker claimed.

“If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections, all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name. That’s it, that's all that's required,” Johnson added.

While non-citizens are prohibited from voting in federal, state, and most local elections, California, Maryland, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. 

“The most fundamental thing you can do to destroy the rule of law and to destroy our republic is to undermine faith in elections and undermine integrity of elections by making it unclear as to who is voting and limiting our ability to know that only citizens are voting,” Roy said Wednesday.

“It’s legislation that really ought to pass unanimously in both houses of Congress because the only reason to oppose this—that I can think of—would be if you are comfortable with or somehow want non-citizens to vote and non-citizens in some instances to influence the outcome of elections,” Lee said.