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NEW REPUBLICAN PLAN FOR VOTER SUPPRESSION  
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Hansi Lo Wang
June 11, 2024
NPR
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_ A bill has been introduced that would require proof of citizenship
for registration to vote in Federal elections while 1 in 10 voters say
they can't easily show proof of citizenship. _

People wait in line to vote in Georgia's 2022 primary election in
Atlanta., Brynn Anderson/AP

 

Top Republicans are lining up behind a proposal
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require proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration in federal
elections. But for millions of U.S. citizens, it’s not easy to prove
their citizenship with a document.

About 1 in 10 adult citizens, or 21.3 million eligible voters, say
they either do not have or could not quickly find in order to show the
next day their U.S. birth certificate, passport, naturalization
certificate or certificate of citizenship, according to results
released Tuesday from a national survey
[[link removed]].

The new findings [[link removed]],
shared first with NPR, also show disparities by race, ethnicity and
political affiliation.

U.S. citizens of color are more likely than white citizens, who do not
identify as Latino, to say they lack citizenship documents (3% of
people of color compared to 1% of white people) or can’t readily
access them (11% of people of color vs. 8% of white people).
Independents are more likely to report that they don’t have
documents (4%) compared to Democrats (2%) and Republicans (1%). They
are also more likely to report not having ready document access (13%)
than Democrats (10%) and Republicans (7%).

The results fall in line with longstanding concerns
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many election experts and voting rights advocates, who have warned
that proposals — including the new Republican-backed bill in the
U.S. House of Representatives
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to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when
signing up to vote in federal elections could risk keeping eligible
voters from casting ballots.

“We've got a huge crisis on our hands when we think about the people
who lack the documents required to prove their citizenship and
identity. And we really need to think about the far-reaching
implications for that when it comes to economic and social and voting
access,” says Lauren Kunis, executive director of VoteRiders, a
voting rights organization focused on voter ID issues that sponsored
the survey alongside groups including the Brennan Center for Justice
at New York University’s law school and the University of
Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.

Federal law requires
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to accept registration forms
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call for applicants to swear under penalty of perjury that they are
U.S. citizens and review this warning: “If I have provided false
information, I may be fined, imprisoned, or (if not a U.S. citizen)
deported from or refused entry to the United States.” Most states
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use applicants’ driver’s license or Social Security numbers to
check people’s citizenship information in government agency
databases.

Still, a group of House Republicans rolled out a bill
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month to require all eligible voters to show documentary proof of
citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. Applicants
who cannot provide an acceptable document
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be able to sign a sworn statement about their U.S. citizenship and
submit “other evidence” to a state official, who would decide
whether the applicant has “sufficiently established” citizenship.

While the proposal is unlikely to become law in this divided Congress,
the GOP lawmakers say they want to address the rare and illegal
practice
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non-U.S. citizens casting ballots for federal races — a talking
point that former President Donald Trump and his supporters have long
boosted.

“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,” said House Speaker Mike
Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, at a press conference
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the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.

Numbers that are available
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however, indicate that noncitizens cast ballots in exceedingly small
numbers in federal elections.

“By making these requirements more strict, you're more likely to
catch people who actually do have the documents or are able to verify
their identity but, just because of happenstance or some quirk, are
unable to do so at the very moment when they need to in order to
vote,” says Bernard Fraga, an associate professor of political
science at Emory University, who has researched the impact of voter
ID laws [[link removed]].

The latest results from the national survey, which was conducted last
September and October, are a reminder that the financial and
logistical hurdles to getting a citizenship document or keeping one on
hand should not be overlooked, Fraga adds.

“I think that the broader story that we see here is the idea that
what for many Americans doesn't seem like that big of an issue —
demonstrating that you're a citizen — for some Americans is actually
enough of a hurdle to make voting just inaccessible,” Fraga says.

Kunis, VoteRiders’ executive director, says her organization has
helped eligible voters overcome a range of barriers to obtaining
citizenship documents. They may be stored inside a bank’s safe
deposit box or tucked away at a family member’s home in another town
or state. Some people may need support navigating a “bureaucratic
doom loop” when trying to replace faded certificates, Kunis adds.

And for more than 3.8 million adult citizens, or about 2% of eligible
voters, there’s no document to find at all, according to the
survey’s estimates. That includes birth certificates.

“Older Americans and Black Americans, particularly in the South, are
more likely to have been born outside of a hospital setting, meaning
they didn't receive a birth certificate automatically,” Kunis points
out.

What is driving these calls for proof of citizenship?

While the survey found that requiring proof of citizenship would
likely disproportionately affect historically underrepresented groups,
including people of color and political independents, Michael Hanmer,
a professor of government and politics, who directs the University of
Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, notes that the
results also show that these requirements would still affect other
groups.

“There's not a whole lot of evidence that, for example, stricter
laws about proof of citizenship are going to solve problems with fraud
because there really aren't problems with fraud,” Hanmer says.
“That leads you to wonder, ‘Well, what might be going on here?’
And if there's political reasons behind it, then our results suggest
that that should be rethought because this is not going to just hit
one group. It's going to hit everybody.”

In New Hampshire, Republican-led proposals would change the state’s
election laws
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require proof of citizenship when people register to vote in the state
for the first time. Federal courts struck down
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similar Kansas state law — which was backed by former Kansas
Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who is the state’s
current attorney general and once served as vice chair of
Trump’s short-lived voter fraud commission
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for violating the 14th Amendment
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the National Voter Registration Act
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And there is an ongoing legal fight over Arizona’s now-blocked
proof-of-citizenship requirements
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ban registered voters who have not provided proof from voting in
presidential elections or by mail for any federal office. The
Republican National Committee, along with Arizona’s top GOP state
lawmakers, are appealing
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federal judge’s ruling
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found the National Voter Registration Act preempts the state’s
restrictions.

With no evidence that noncitizens are voting in numbers significant
enough to sway election outcomes, Sean Morales-Doyle — director of
the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which
advocates for expanded voter access — says calls to enact
requirements like these are fueled instead by baseless claims of
widespread voter fraud from Trump and his allies.

“They're trying to lay the groundwork for the ability to call the
outcome into question if they aren't happy about the outcome later,”
Morales-Doyle says. “We've seen this playbook before and we're
seeing it play out again.”

_Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) is a correspondent for NPR reporting on the
state of U.S. democracy, including the election process, voting rights
and the census.  Wang was the first journalist to uncover plans by
former President Donald Trump's administration to end 2020 census
counting early
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* voter suppression
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* Republican Party
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* voter registration
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* voter ID law
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