America First Legal (AFL) filed a petition with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) last week, urging the agency to require documented proof of citizenship (DPOC) in order to register to vote in elections. If the EAC doesn’t take action on it, federal law allows the requesting party to sue the agency.
“America First Legal will not stand by while our elections are undermined by loopholes and an ‘honor system’ that invites fraud,” said Senior Counsel James Rogers. “The right to vote is the sacred privilege of American citizens — period. We are demanding that the EAC fulfill its duty to the American people by requiring real, documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections. Anything less is an open invitation for illegal voting and a betrayal of our democracy.”
AFL explained in its press release that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the “Motor Voter Law,” has been used to prevent states from passing laws requiring voter registration. Courts have interpreted this law as only permitting what the NVRA requires, which is merely requiring applicants to check a box affirming they are U.S. citizens. It states nothing about requesting documentation or proof, so courts refuse to allow states to request this.
The group said in its petition, “The reliance on self-attestation, without DPOC, is nearly self-refuting. How does it make any sense to rely on an applicant’s honesty to prevent dishonesty?”
However, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, said in a dissent to a recent case striking down two Arizona laws regarding removing noncitizens from the voter rolls due to allegedly violating the NVRA that the federal law doesn’t have authority over the state’s elections. He said “the Constitution doesn’t grant Congress the power to regulate who may vote in presidential elections.”
Due to being stymied by these court decisions, AFL is seeking to have the EAC amend the federal voter registration form to require applicants to provide their DPOC when registering to vote.
Trump attempted to address the problem with his sweeping election integrity executive order in March, but federal judges struck down the parts that addressed requiring DPOC to register to vote. Although the Supreme Court recently ruled that lone district court judges can no longer issue nationwide injunctions, the injunctions still apply to the states that sued the Trump administration over them. Attorney General Kris Mayes has been one of the most litigious attorneys general in the country, suing the Trump administration, including over his executive order, so the injunction continues to apply to Arizona.
The petition observed, “Only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections. It is a federal crime for foreigners to vote for ‘President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, [or] Member of the House of Representatives.’ It is also a crime for a foreigner to falsely claim U.S. citizenship to register to vote.”
AFL laid out examples of noncitizens on the voter rolls. In Texas, authorities found “nearly 100,000 possible foreigners on their voter rolls, of which around 58,000 may have voted in previous elections.” After Texas election officials removed 6,500 foreign citizens, they discovered 1,930 had voted. North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Alabama found similar situations. The Heritage Foundation’s election fraud database contains “1,499 proven instances of voter fraud, with 1,275 criminal convictions,” AFL said.
The group cited a recent survey by Just Facts, which found that 10-20 percent of noncitizens are illegally registered to vote.
“Based on that data, the author of that survey predicted that roughly 1 million to 2.7 million aliens would vote in the 2024 election…,” the AFL said.
The group cited close elections where fraudulent votes could have made a difference, including a New Hampshire Senate race decided by two votes, a Minnesota Senate race decided by 312 votes, and the 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in Florida by 537 votes. In Arizona’s 2022 election, Democrat Kris Mayes defeated Republican Abe Hamadeh for attorney general by 280 votes.
AFL noted that the Supreme Court said in its 2013 case striking down Arizona’s Prop. 200 law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote that “states could petition the EAC to include additional requirements, such as DPOC, in the federal form’s instructions.”
The petition outlined various methods states have employed to remove noncitizens from voter rolls and why these efforts have been ineffective. For example, Arizona is one of several states that utilize the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database for verifying citizenship during voter registration. However, SAVE does not track illegal immigrants who are not apprehended by DHS and cannot search for native-born citizens.
Additionally, the existing EAC form doesn’t collect full Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers in a manner that would allow for cross-referencing with existing databases, AFL said.
The group concluded by listing the benefits of the proposed change.
“Implementing a uniform DPOC requirement across all states offers significant advantages in terms of consistency and administrative efficiency,” it stated.
AFL said concern has increased recently.
“The significant increase in illegal immigration during the Biden Administration, during which time U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported record numbers of apprehensions and gotaways, also increases the concerns about voter fraud by aliens,” the group wrote.
AFL has been at the forefront of ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in elections. The group sued Maricopa County in 2023 for failing to remove noncitizens from voter rolls. It found that 35,273 registered voters in Arizona had failed to provide proof of citizenship. As a result, they were registered as federal-only voters as of April 2024, a number that continues to increase, according to a report from Maricopa County. AFL said that by January 2, that number had increased to 50,000. “[I]f even a fourth of those federal-only voters failed to provide DPOC because they are not in fact eligible to vote, they provide enough illegal votes to swing an election,” AFL stated, noting that Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden in Arizona by 10,457 votes.
The complaint cited a July 2024 survey of likely voters in Arizona and five other states, which found that over 1 percent of respondents stated they are not U.S. citizens.
The lawsuit was ultimately successful, with all 15 of Arizona’s counties agreeing to a settlement that required the removal of noncitizens from voter rolls.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to .
Photo “People Voting” by Wyofile Wyofile. CC BY 2.0.
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