(Texas Scorecard) – Congress will move forward with a vote on the SAVE Act today, attached to a six-month continuing resolution temporarily funding the federal government.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would require states to obtain proof of citizenship at voter registration and that states proactively remove non-citizens from voter rolls.
Even if the measure passes the House and Senate and becomes law, with registration and voter roll maintenance deadlines looming, its passage would come too late to safeguard the 2024 election.
Election integrity advocates in Texas have been advocating for such a measure at both the state and the national levels for years. In 2018, the election integrity activists demanded action after non-citizens were found to be on voter rolls and voting in Texas elections.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s call to include the measure with the continuing resolution doesn’t come without risk but does come at the same time as a fresh example of why such a measure is needed.
Yesterday, Arizona announced that nearly 100,000 registered voters in the state were registered without proof of citizenship. The mistake was caught after an election worker discovered a non-citizen registered to vote.
In a twist, the majority of registered voters impacted are registered Republicans. This error has gone unnoticed for more than a decade.
A Maricopa County election official will ask a court to bar these voters from voting in state and local elections.
Fittingly, the vote on the SAVE Act is set to take place on National Only Citizens Vote week.
Christine Welborn, president of Advancing Integrity and a founding member of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, praised activists around the nation for pushing for the measure. “Trust in our elections has been fundamentally undermined; it’s time to ensure the vote of American citizens isn’t canceled.”
The Biden-Harris administration has vowed to veto the SAVE Act, and the Senate, controlled by a slim majority of Democrats, is expected to move expeditiously to strip the election reform from the funding measure.
