REVEALED: How many non-citizens are signed up to vote in Democrat-run Washington D.C. as Republicans begin 'crackdown''
In a letter dated May 15 D.C. Board of Election Chair Gary Thompson revealed there are 489 non-citizen registered voters in the districtNon-citizens are banned from voting in federal elections under federal law
House Republicans will vote on legislation to ban non-citizens from voting in the nation's capital on Thursday after it was revealed that some 500 are on Washington, D.C.'s voter rolls.
'If this voting bill can't pass, everybody watch very closely. It's going to be proof positive, there are some Democrats who want illegal aliens deciding elections. It's going to be clear, they don't want Americans deciding American elections,' Speaker Mike Johnson said in a news conference on Wednesday.
The legislation is almost certain to die in the Senate.
In a letter dated May 15 D.C. Board of Election Chair Gary Thompson revealed there are 489 non-citizen registered voters in the district.
The D.C. City Council amended its code in 2023 to allow non-citizen voting. It went a step further than other jurisdictions by allowing not just non-citizens but those who are here illegally to participate in local elections.
Non-citizens are banned from voting in federal elections under federal law.
D.C. residents were already allowed to vote while they are incarcerated, along imprisoned felons of Maine and Vermont.
House Republicans will vote on legislation to ban non-citizens from voting in the nation's capital on Thursday after it was revealed that some 500 are on Washington, D.C.'s voter rolls
Republicans questioned how elections officials would be able to differentiate between non-citizen voters and others and make sure non-citizen voters only got a ballot for local elections.
'Our system will also easily generate a unique ballot for a non-citizen, excluding the presence of any federal contests. This is much like ensuring that a ballot for someone voting in the Republican primary does not include Democrat contests, and vice-versa,' Thompson ensured.
'You know, why should somebody at the Russian embassy be able to vote in elections here in the United States of America? Yet that is what is allowed today,' Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a news conference on Wednesday.
'They shouldn't be able, as a citizen of China, be able to vote in America's elections, for goodness sake.'
Foreign nationals can only vote in local elections if they renounce their right to vote in their home country.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton, D.C.'s non-voting delegate in Congress, slammed the bill ahead of the vote: 'D.C. laws are matters for the duly elected D.C. Council and mayor, not unaccountable members of Congress who do not represent D.C. residents. The almost 700,000 D.C. residents are worthy and capable of governing their own local affairs.'
Republicans have in recent days given more vocal credence to the Great Replacement Theory - that Democrats embrace illegal immigrants to dilute the voting power of U.S. citizens and help them in the census.
'Democrats here in Washington wants illegal aliens in our country. Why? So they can become voters, and they can affect the outcome of the census and security to affect reapportionment of Congress,' Johnson said in a news conference Wednesday.
The bills comes as Republicans make a larger push for legislation to enforce restrictions on non-citizen voting at the federal level.
Federal law prohibits requiring documentary proof of citizenship in elections. Arizona requires it for state elections.
The SAVE Act, authored by Rep. Chip Roy and being pushed by Johnson and former President Donald Trump, aims to force election officials to verify citizenship in elections. It's not yet clear when it will come up for a vote.
Johnson, speaking alongside Trump world heavyweights Stephen Miller and Hogan Gidley and Roy last week, did not give a full accounting of how many non-citizens have voted in elections, but warned the number could be 'dangerously high.'
'We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it's not been something that is easily provable. We don't have that number. This legislation will allow us to do exactly that.'
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Non-citizens who vote in federal and state elections are already breaking the law and putting themselves at risk of jail or deportation. A small handful of municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont allow illegal immigrants to vote in local elections.
'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 said.
Miller, the architect of Trump's immigration policy, called the bill the 'most important vote that most members of Congress take in their entire careers.'
'If this bill does not become law then Joe Biden and Democrats will have engineered, one of the greatest interferences in any democratic nation in the history of the world.'
The bill would aim to close any loopholes that allow people to register to vote without proof of US citizenship or photo ID, require all 50 states to remove any unlawful immigrants from their voter rolls, add penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who register non-citizens to vote and require proof of citizenship for those who vote overseas.
There's little evidence that non-citizen voting is impacting election outcomes, and unlawful immigrants often steer clear of giving out personal information for fear or being caught by immigration authorities.
It is possible to vote illegally as an undocumented immigrant, though.
Most voting ballots require some kind of proof of identity to register to vote, such as a driver's license. Not all of those proofs of ID require citizenship - the bill would specifically require ID requirements like passports or birth certificates.
A sampling from 2002 to 2022 of over 1 billion ballots found fewer than 100 cases of voter fraud.