POLITIFACT

Republicans push for noncitizen voting ban in Congress. But a federal ban already exists.

Louis Jacobson and Amy Sherman
PolitiFact.com
A Republican bill in the House aims to ensure that noncitizens don’t vote in federal elections, even though that is already banned.

In a Friday event at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Republicans in Congress would introduce a bill to make noncitizen voting illegal, ignoring the fact that noncitizens already cannot vote in federal elections and repeating false allegations of rampant election fraud.

Their joint appearance came soon after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., called for Johnson’s ouster for working too closely with Democrats, and as Trump continues to make securing the border a key argument for his return to the White House. 

As he campaigns in 2024, Trump has repeatedly made false and ridiculous statements about the 2020 election. Trump’s election result denial has poisoned many Americans’ views on voting, misleading the public about how elections are run.

So far this year, Trump, entrepreneur Elon Musk and social media influencers have spread statements that create a false impression that noncitizens’ voting or their voter registration is rampant. It isn’t.

The rhetoric is fed, partly, by the reality that a minority of cities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, such as for mayor or city council. This includes some cities in California, Maryland and Vermont, Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, previously told PolitiFact. 

But by law, only American citizens are allowed to vote in elections for Congress and president.

Noncitizen voting has been a frequent theme of misinformation in 2024

Trump has made false claims about noncitizens voting stretching back to 2014 and to his 2016 presidential race. He made similar statements after his 2020 loss.

Trump said in January that Democrats are allowing immigrants illegally in the country "to come in — people that don’t speak our language — they are signing them up to vote." 

Trump didn’t directly identify who "they" are, but in his preceding comments, he talked about people who "cheat on an election" — language he often uses to talk about Democrats.

Our search for evidence turned up sporadic cases of noncitizens registering to vote or casting ballots. But we found no effort by Democrats to register people in the country illegally. Most noncitizens don’t want to risk jail time (or deportation if they are here illegally) by casting a ballot. Election officials take several steps to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots. 

We rated Trump’s statement Pants on Fire. 

Musk has posted about noncitizens and voting dozens of times. His posts claim that Biden is bringing in new migrants to boost votes for Democrats.

Musk said in a February post on X that Biden’s strategy is to "get as many illegals in the country as possible" and "legalize them to create a permanent majority." 

The path to U.S. citizenship, which is required for voting in federal elections, can take a decade, so the current influx of immigrants would not lead to a significant number of new voters for many years, if ever. Even when immigrants become voting citizens, it doesn’t mean the United States will become a one-party nation. We rated Musk’s statement False. 

If a noncitizen is allowed to vote in a city race, that does not give that person the right to vote for president.

For example, Takoma Park, Md., has allowed noncitizen voting for mayor and city council since 1993. About 200 noncitizens are registered to vote in elections, compared with 11,200 registered citizen voters, in Takoma Park. 

Voting for local elections is done on separate ballots and at different locations from state and federal elections. Jessie Carpenter, Takoma Park's clerk, said if a noncitizen shows up to vote in a state or federal election, that person would not be on the roll of eligible voters.

"There is no basis for thinking these folks would be voting in state elections," Carpenter said.

Trump continues to spread falsehoods about 2020

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly made false statements about the 2020 election. His 2020 election result denial has poisoned many Americans’ views on voting.

Trump has made other statements that distort the outcome of elections. Before a recent rally in Wisconsin, Trump said he won Wisconsin in 2020. He won the state in 2016 but lost in 2020.

A probe led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman — who has aligned with Trump and promoted his false claims — turned up no evidence that the election was incorrectly called. We rated Trump’s statement Pants on Fire.

Many of Trump’s falsehoods pertain to voting by mail and its expansion during the pandemic. Trump said in January that Democrats "used COVID to cheat" in the 2020 election.

Many states made voting easier during the pandemic by mailing a ballot or an application to receive a ballot to registered voters. Some states that previously required voters to have an excuse to vote by mail loosened that rule.

Trump is free to disagree with these changes, but he is wrong to characterize them as cheating. These changes were made openly, through executive orders, administrative actions or law. And when a state expanded access to voting by mail, that was available to Republican voters, too. 

In a March speech in Greensboro, N.C., Trump falsely said, "Eighty-two percent of the country understands that it was a rigged election." Polls showed a majority of Americans believed the 2020 results were legitimate, although significant numbers of Republicans did not.

Johnson sought to overturn the 2020 election

Johnson aligned himself with Trump and congressional Republicans who sought to overturn legitimate results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

​​In December 2020, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block four battleground states from voting in the Electoral College. Those four states voted for Biden.

Johnson sent an email to Republican colleagues asking them to join an amicus — or "friend of the court" — brief in support of Paxton’s lawsuit, CNN reported. 

The majority of the conference, 126 Republicans, signed the brief. Johnson tweeted Dec. 10, 2020, that he was "proud to lead" the effort.

In interviews after the election, Johnson spread falsehoods about voting machines and a "rigged" election. On Jan. 6, Johnson objected to certification of the election.

Congressional efforts to ban noncitizen voting

Republicans in Congress, with a boost from Trump, are pushing for lawmakers to pass a ban on noncitizen voting. 

"Congress has a role with regard to federal elections," Johnson said Friday before his meeting with Trump. "We want to make absolutely certain that anybody who votes is actually an American citizen. In some states, it's too easy. … So we need to make sure that federal law is clear on that matter."

The proposed legislation is drawing attention because Republicans have made fear of noncitizen voting a frequent talking point as a high number of migrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

There are a few Republican-backed legislative efforts to curb noncitizen voting.

The broadest bill, the American Confidence in Elections Act, is sponsored by Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis. It has 131 co-sponsors, all Republicans. One provision in this bill says it will ensure "only eligible American citizens may participate in federal elections. It draws from previous legislation including the "NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act of 2023" filed by Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va.

The bill acknowledges that this requirement is duplicative of existing law and constitutional requirements: Noncitizens are already not allowed to vote in federal elections.

Steil’s bill also has the following elements targeting noncitizen voting:

  • A provision to require states to separate noncitizens who are eligible to vote in local elections from citizen voters on registration lists.
  • A provision that requires ballots given to noncitizen voters in local elections to include only the offices for which they are eligible to vote, rather than federal offices for which they may not vote.
  • A provision to cut by 30% the federal election administration funding sent to any state that allows noncitizens to vote in local elections. 
  • A provision preventing the spending of federal money for election administration on efforts to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

These measures would fall short of banning local noncitizen voting entirely, because federalism prevents Congress from infringing on local powers over their own jurisdictions. But because of Congress’ unusual ability to influence governance in the District of Columbia, the bill would block the district directly from allowing noncitizens to vote. The district’s provisions have attracted intense opposition from voting rights groups.

This bill has passed the House Administration Committee, which Steil chairs, over Democratic opposition. But it has not received a floor vote yet.

Amid Republican concerns that the full bill will have trouble getting through the chamber, the committee has also approved six pieces of Steil’s bill as stand-alone legislation. Three of these smaller bills touch on noncitizen voting.

One measure would ban the District of Columbia from allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections. Another spinoff bill would let states include on vote-by-mail registration applications a requirement that the applicant provide proof of U.S. citizenship.

And a third bill would require the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to respond to requests from election officials who seek to verify the citizenship of voters in their state.

It’s unclear when, or whether, any of these measures will come to a vote in the House. If they do pass the House, the ones that receive widespread Democratic opposition are likely to be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Opponents of such measures argue that there are already election law safeguards in place that address these concerns. Those protections include that current law already bans noncitizen voting in federal elections and penalties can include jail time, deportation or denial of citizenship applications. Also, when people register to vote, they swear under oath that they are citizens.

Our sources