Johnson’s ‘intuition’ clashes with data on illegal voting

Republicans announced a bill last week that would ban noncitizens from voting in federal elections. It bans things that are already illegal to address problems that lawmakers can’t prove exist.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told reporters last week bluntly that Republicans are motivated by a hunch to push for another bill restricting Americans from voting.

“Everyone intuitively knows that many illegal aliens vote in federal elections. But that’s not something that can be easily proven. We don’t have that number. This law… That’s exactly what will enable that and prevent that from happening. And if someone were to try to do that, it would be illegal in the state,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday on the steps of the Capitol. He said this at a press conference.

Federal law since 1996 has prohibited noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and many states have passed similar laws for local elections.

So Mr. Johnson’s speech was a jarring admission for voting rights advocates who have data on non-citizen votes — numbers that show how minimal such cases are.

“The problem is that we actually have those numbers, and we know that noncitizens are not voting illegally in detectable numbers, much less in large numbers.” said Eliza Swearen Becker, Senior Counsel for Voting Rights and Elections. Brennan Justice Center Program. Pointed to a study that looked at data from 42 different jurisdictions.

“A Brennan Center study of the 2016 general election estimated that there were 30 cases of suspected unverified non-referendum votes out of 23.5 million votes cast, representing 0.0001 percent of the total votes cast. , the chairman’s instincts are wrong,” she told The Hill.

This is the conclusion reached by the libertarian Cato Institute, along with one of its experts. call for complaints One of the “most frequent but least serious criticisms” about immigration.

Mr. Johnson’s appeal to intuition struck a nerve with civil rights activists. They believe that illegal voting is not the problem, but a proxy for voter suppression against underserved communities.

“Intuition is of no use. I don’t mean licking. And we need evidence. We need details. And what I would say is that a lot of our organizations are not trying to figure out whether to vote fraudulently or to qualify. “We are searching thoroughly for any evidence of votes cast by people who are not eligible. There is no evidence,” said Janet Murguia, president of UnidosUS, the country’s largest Latino civil rights organization.

“So he can have as many intuitions as he wants, but that doesn’t mean they’re true. It doesn’t mean there’s evidence, it doesn’t mean they’re facts. To prove evidence of fraud, you have to have specific You need to check the data.”

Johnson first laid out the framework for the bill during a visit to Mar-a-Lago in April, shortly after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) threatened to vote to remove him from office. and announced it together with former President Trump.

“I think this is another way for him to appease the lunatics on the right, because he’s on the chopping block right now and he has to do something to give them red bait. “We watched him do it when we stood next to Trump at Mar-a-Lago,” said Nanette Díaz Barragan (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. said.

House Democrats announced that Johnson, along with a number of Trump allies, including Stephen Miller, the architect of much of Trump’s immigration policy, and Ken Cuccinelli, the former acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, announced the voter fraud bill. Just hours later, he joined with the Republican majority in a floor vote to save Johnson’s job. , they helped implement them. Cleta Mitchell, who supported legal efforts to challenge the 2020 election results after President Trump lost, also attended.

The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) requires voters to prove their citizenship in order to vote.

These measures are often cited by voting rights advocates who worry that many people don’t have passports or birth certificates on hand, that they are expensive to obtain, and that they create barriers to accessing the ballot box. is causing concern.

Swearenbecker said the Brennan Center found that: 5 percent and 7 percent In total, millions of Americans lack “the most common types of documents used to prove citizenship.”

This created a barrier for states to pass their own citizenship certification laws, many of which have since been struck down by the courts. The Kansas law has been in effect for three years and has suspended more than 22,000 people from voter rolls for failing to provide proof of citizenship. Courts have struck down the law along with similar plans in several other states, but a federal judge upheld Arizona’s law in March after years of efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote.

“That’s stupid. It’s already illegal. They’re trying to convey a message, a lie, to the American people that illegal aliens are voting. Now it’s illegal to do that. Another Claim There’s no need to create a book. It’s already illegal,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).

“This is just another time-waster that Republicans specialize in.”

“The most basic thing you can do to destroy the rule of law and destroy our republic is to “This bill is necessary because it undermines trust in the government,” he said. election. ”

“We need documentary evidence. … We should have a system that guarantees that only American citizens vote in federal elections,” he said.

But advocates have long argued that the system is already in place, and that research by right-wing groups proves it.

“We have certain right-wing groups, very conservative groups, that are scrutinizing this area for possible illegal voting by ineligible persons, especially undocumented persons, and reporting Even if there was, that’s a big number,” Murguia said.

heritage foundation maintain the database Some of the cases in the file date back to the 1980s, but include what it calls “recent” cases of voter fraud. Under “ineligible votes,” the database reports approximately 50 cases of votes cast by noncitizens.

Many noncitizen voting cases involve visa holders or lawful permanent residents rather than illegal aliens.

in front of 2014 Florida Midterm Elections, then-Gov. Rick Scott (R) announced plans to remove 180,000 foreigners from voter rolls, but that number would first be reduced to 2,600, then 198, and finally 85 names. He was removed from the list and only one person was indicted.

Unlike other crimes, where it is difficult to pinpoint the perpetrator, registering to vote and voting leaves a paper trail and is itself a crime.

Noncitizens who register to vote or take other actions pretending to be citizens can be sentenced to up to five years in prison, and those who vote can be sentenced to up to one year in prison. There is.

Those who violate the law are subject to deportation and their chances of obtaining citizenship are in jeopardy.

Joseph Thurber, charged in the Florida voter purge, was sentenced to five months in prison, but the judge gave him a relatively short sentence considering Thurber would almost certainly be deported. .

“The effects are very serious, and this is not really a risk to anyone,” Swearenbecker said.

“And that intuition really shows in the numbers.”