(Matthew Doarnberger, Headline USA) During their meeting last Friday at Mar-a-Lago, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., joined former president Donald Trump to officially announce the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or SAVE Act.
The bill, first introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, would require proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote in an election, among other things.
The bill specifies what forms of government-issued identification would be accepted as evidence of citizenship. It then goes on the address other voting issues, like allowing states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls and introducing penalties for registering an applicant who fails to provide proof of citizenship.
“Since 1993, the National Voter Registration Act—we call it the motor voter law—allows people to sign up to vote when they get a driver’s license,” Johnson said, according to Breitbart.
“If an individual … simply states that they are a citizen, they don’t have to prove it,” Johnson noted of the loophole that Democrats have exploited to muddy the waters of the electorate. “They can register that person to vote in a federal election—and, you see, states are currently prohibited … believe it or not, the states are prohibited from asking someone to prove that they are a citizen.”
Johnson went on to connect election integrity to the growing crisis occurring at the southern border.
“It will provide access to databases from the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to help the states administer this as the entity that is responsible for regulating federal elections,” he said. “We cannot wait for widespread fraud to occur, especially when the threat of it is growing with every single illegal immigrant that crosses that border.”
Given the small majority that the Republicans currently have in the House of Representatives, there could be reason to doubt the passage of the SAVE Act.
Johnson no doubt hopes the bill will unite a significant number of Republicans in the midst of recent infighting and an attempt to remove him as speaker.
