Illegal voting by non-residents is rare, but Republicans are making it a major issue this election

Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in the fall presidential election and other top elections. While it’s nothing new, the possibility of non-citizens registering or voting has recently attracted a lot of attention.

Republicans, citing the influx of immigrants in recent years at the U.S.-Mexico border, have raised concerns about the prospect of noncitizens voting and have taken steps in several states to address that prospect, though instances of noncitizens actually voting are rare.

GOP officials have conducted review of voter rolls, issued executive orders and placed constitutional amendments on state ballots as part of a push to prevent noncitizens from voting. Some Democrats say the measures could create obstacles for legal voters, are unnecessary and make people believe the problem of noncitizen voting is bigger than it is.

A 1996 U.S. law prohibits noncitizens from voting in presidential elections or for members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. They can also be deported.

When people register to vote, they certify under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter registrations and remove anyone who is ineligible to vote, a process that can identify immigrants living in the country illegally.

No state constitutions explicitly allow non-citizens to vote, and many states have laws that prohibit non-citizens from voting for state offices such as governor or attorney general. However, some municipalities in California, Maryland, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow non-citizens to vote in some local elections, such as school board and city council elections.

Noncitizen voting is rare. Still, Republican officials have pointed to voter registration reviews that have revealed potential noncitizens.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said last week that more than 6,500 potential foreign nationals have been removed from Texas voter rolls since 2021, including 1,930 with “voting histories” who were referred for investigation by the attorney general’s office. Texas has nearly 18 million registered voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in August that he had referred for potential prosecution 138 alleged noncitizens who voted in the last election and 459 others who registered but did not vote. Those numbers were higher than in previous years but were a small fraction of Ohio’s more than 8 million registered voters.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, recently announced that 3,251 people previously identified as noncitizens by the federal government will be moved to inactive status on the state’s voter registration rolls. They will be required to provide proof of citizenship and fill out a form to vote in November. Alabama has more than 3 million registered voters.

In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found that 1,634 would-be noncitizens tried to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, even though election officials flagged them and none were registered. Georgia registered millions of other voters during that time.

Some election administration experts say reviews of voter registration records show that current tools for flagging noncitizen voters are effective.

Arizona is a prime example of Republicans’ long-standing attempts to ban voting by non-citizens.

Under an initiative approved by voters in 2004, Arizona required a driver’s license, birth certificate, passport or other similar document to validate a federal voter registration application. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require people to provide documentary proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.

The state responded by creating two classes of voters. For state and local elections, voters must provide proof of citizenship when registering or have it on file with the state. But because that can’t be required for presidential and congressional elections, tens of thousands of voters who haven’t provided proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.

An August order by a divided U.S. Supreme Court will allow voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” by Arizona counties to be thrown out while litigation over the law continues. People will be able to register to vote in presidential and congressional elections using a different federal form that requires people to swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, without requiring proof.

Eight Republican-majority states have proposed constitutional amendments on the November ballot that would allow only citizens to vote.

The proposals in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin would replace existing constitutional provisions that say “any” citizen or “all” citizens can vote with new language saying “only” citizens can vote. Supporters argue that the current language does not necessarily prevent non-citizens from voting.

In Idaho and Kentucky, proposed amendments would explicitly state: “No person who is not a citizen of the United States” shall be eligible to vote. Similar language won approval from Louisiana voters two years ago.

Between 2018 and 2022, voters in North Dakota, Colorado, Alabama, Florida, and Ohio passed amendments restricting the right to vote “only” to citizens.

Although noncitizen voting is already banned by the state constitution, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry continues to draw attention to the issue. He recently signed an executive order requiring state agencies that provide voter registration forms to include a written disclaimer that noncitizens cannot vote.

Last week, Raffensperger in Georgia ordered every polling place to post signs in English and Spanish warning non-citizens that voting is illegal.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, citing a “significant increase in the foreign population” in the state, set up a special email account Wednesday for reporting suspected election law violations.

In Wisconsin, Republicans have filed a pair of similar lawsuits in recent weeks that challenge the state’s process for verifying whether registered voters are citizens. The lawsuits seek court orders that require the election board to conduct audits to make sure there are no registered voters who are not citizens.

North Carolina Republicans are suing the state election board, saying it is failing to enforce a new law that aims to remove from the voter rolls people who claim to be exempt from jury duty because they are not citizens.

Tennessee’s central elections office sent letters in June asking for proof of citizenship from more than 14,000 registered voters, though those who didn’t respond won’t be disqualified from voting. The list was compiled using data from the state Department of Homeland Security, which has information on whether residents were U.S. citizens when they first contacted the department.

Republicans in Congress are pushing a bill, known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. During a news conference about the legislation this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not provide specific examples of non-citizens voting but insisted it was a problem.

“We all know intuitively that a lot of illegal immigrants vote in federal elections,” he said, “but it’s not something that can be easily proven.”

The bill passed the Republican-led House of Representatives in July largely along party lines but has not been brought to a vote in the Democratic-led Senate. The Biden administration has said it strongly opposes it and that laws against noncitizen voting work.

“This bill will do nothing to secure our elections, but it will make it much more difficult for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters will be removed from the voter rolls,” the White House said in a statement.

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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.