A coalition of top state election officials led by Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson urged congressional Republicans to require federal election officials to mandate stronger citizenship protections for voter registration, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Wire.
Watson and ten other GOP secretaries of state urged Republican leadership in the Senate and House to pass legislation requiring the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to change the current federal voter registration form to demand proof of citizenship rather than relying on an applicant’s word. The Republican officials said that the federal form made it more difficult to ensure that only American citizens were voting in elections.
“Each state requires that to vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen. Unfortunately, the EAC has consistently refused to change the form to require proof of citizenship, preferring a general attestation instead,” Watson wrote on Monday. “As our states’ chief election officials, we respectfully seek your help in fixing this persistent problem.”
The letter was addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-ND), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Rules Committee Chair Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-WI).
The letter asked them to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require applicants to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The measure has been opposed by Democrats.
The current voter registration form posted by the EAC requires an applicant to check a box as proof of citizenship.
For the past two decades, state election officials have asked for the EAC to update its form to require documentary proof of citizenship, but have so far been rebuffed, the letter said.
“The EAC’s refusal to change the Federal Form instructions has forced election administrators to process and approve voter registration applications which do not themselves satisfy the requirements laid out in state law,” the officials wrote.
Watson said that the process of making state officials verify applicants’ proof of citizenship was costly and time-consuming.
“Each paper form requires our election officials to make individualized inquiries into state records and consult with other state databases to process them and determine citizenship,” he wrote. “In Mississippi, these checks can require up to roughly an hour of an employee’s time, depending on how far into the required state process a check must go. This is an enormous aggregate expense both in employee time and tax dollars.”
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Other states that signed on to the letter included Alabama, Missouri, Iowa, New Hampshire, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Wyoming.
They requested that lawmakers revise federal law to require proof of citizenship on the form provided by the EAC and to hold oversight hearings examining the EAC’s opposition to stricter citizenship safeguards.
Election integrity groups like the Honest Elections Project have joined in the calls for documentary proof of citizenship for elections.
“Requiring proof of citizenship is common sense, routine, and hugely popular,” Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead told The Daily Wire. “The time has come for the EAC to affirm laws that keep noncitizens from voting, not undercut them.”
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