Republican Sen. Mike Lee said that he believes there are “at least tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands” of noncitizens illegally registered to vote in the U.S., adding that a federal tool used in nearly two dozen states would help identify the number. But the tool has wrongly flagged many as being noncitizens, and there’s no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said the SAVE America Act “could disenfranchise over 20 million American citizens,” while Republicans dispute that the voter registration and ID bill would block any legitimate voters. Election experts say the bill, which isn’t expected to pass, would make it difficult for some unknown number of voters to register and cast a vote.
On March 17, the Senate began debate on the SAVE America Act, a Republican-backed voter identification and registration bill that passed the House last month. Here, we answer several questions about the legislation, many of them asked by our readers.
Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency he leads claim to have unearthed evidence to prove a longstanding conspiracy theory about Democrats orchestrating illegal voting by noncitizens on a scale large enough to swing national elections in their favor. But voting experts say the claims are highly dubious, and DOGE hasn’t released any evidence.
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego has consistently said that he opposes allowing anyone other than United States citizens to vote in Arizona and in federal elections. But in a campaign ad attacking him, Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake misleadingly claims that the congressman “supports … allowing illegals to vote.”
A TV ad from a conservative group distorts the facts about the “For the People Act,” a voting rights bill approved by the Democratic-controlled House and now in the Senate.
President Trump wrongly claims that “58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas.” That’s based on the state’s efforts to match driver’s license and state ID card applications from noncitizens to voter registration rolls. But none of those on the lists have been confirmed as noncitizen voters.
Amid a contentious Florida recount, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a six-year-old, and outdated, story to suggest hundreds of thousands of noncitizens could have voted in the state. The story includes an update saying just 85 noncitizens were ultimately removed from the state’s voter rolls in 2012.
President-elect Donald Trump baselessly claimed that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Even the author of the study upon which the claim is based doesn’t buy that.
Donald Trump is citing unsubstantiated urban myths and a contested academic study to paint a false narrative about rampant voter fraud in the U.S. and the likelihood of a “rigged” election.