Last month, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that called for election integrity, a constitutional right which assures that ballot box irregularities do not dilute Americans’ votes. In his EO, the president noted that “the United States has not adequately enforced federal election requirements that, for example, prohibit States from counting ballots received after Election Day or prohibit non-citizens from registering to vote.” The EO mandated proof of citizenship.
Whether illegal aliens vote or whether they should be approved to vote in federal elections is a decades-long and ongoing debate. Immigration activists have lobbied for granting unlawfully present aliens voting permission even though federal law expressly prohibits it. A 1996 law, “Voting by Aliens,” decrees that it is a crime for noncitizens to vote in elections for president or members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. They can also be deported. But advocates claim that illegal aliens contribute to the economy, their children are enrolled in the school system, and they further contend that they deserve a voice in their representation. Moreover, while backers for illegal alien voting grudgingly admit that their constituency does cast ballots, they are quick to insist that the total isn’t enough to influence elections’ outcomes, essentially dismissing the law. In his book “Non-citizen voting and American Democracy,” Stanley Renston made the observation that most Americans feel that the best way to integrate new immigrants is to encourage them to learn our language, culture, history, and civic traditions. Then, the immigrants would be citizenship-eligible and welcomed as Americans. To the surprise of the many who don’t follow immigration day-to-day, Renston wrote, “a concerted effort is underway to gain acceptance for, and implement, the idea that the U.S. should allow new [illegal] immigrants to vote without becoming citizens. It is mounted by an alliance that brings together progressive academics, law professors, local and state political leaders, and community activists, all working to decouple voting from American citizenship.”
When people register to vote, they confirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone who is ineligible, a process that could identify illegal aliens. No state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many states have laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting for state offices such as governor or attorney general. But some municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow voting by noncitizens in some local elections such as for school board and city council.
The federal law “Voting by Aliens” law has two loopholes that easily could give illegal aliens access to the voting booth. They are Section (2) if “the alien permanently resided
in the U. S. prior to attaining the age of 16” and Section (3) if “the alien reasonably believed at the time of voting in violation of such subsection that he or she was a citizen of the United States.” Number (2) gives voting permission to unaccompanied minors or a host of other illegal aliens that may have crossed as minors including potential DACA candidates. And number (3) could allow illegal aliens to claim, not unreasonably from their perspective, that as long-time resident taxpayers who had avoided deportation through both Republican and Democrat administrations, they considered themselves citizens.
Although proof of citizenship is strongly supported among Americans, and in fact purple state Wisconsin approved with 63% of the vote, mandatory photo ID, Democrats resist what most of the nation favors. In 2024, the House, with five votes from Democrats, passed the Safeguard the American Voter Act (SAVE). But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to bring SAVE up for an Upper Chamber vote. He insisted that earlier laws had previously deemed illegal aliens voting a crime. House Speaker Johnson wondered out loud what damage the extra layer of protection the SAVE Act provided could do.
The president’s EO set off predictable legal challenges. Led by California and Nevada, the states suing are Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Separate challenges filed earlier include plaintiffs like the DNC, the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Both the House and the Senate have re-introduced the SAVE Act in 2025 with Sen. Mike Lee calling his version “beefed up” to include not only proof of citizenship but also same-day voting with paper ballots. Voting privileges, and the protections necessary to ensure that integrity is preserved, will be another battle that the Trump administration will have to fight all the way up to the Supreme Court.
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