Proof of Citizenship
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the right to vote in federal elections for the Senate, House of Representatives and presidency is limited to U.S. citizens.
With few exceptions, most state constitutions explicitly authorize only resident citizens to vote in state and local elections.
Currently, there is no state or national database or system to verify the citizenship of voters. Many states utilize self-reported citizenship information from non-citizen residents, but some use the national Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program database at the Department of Homeland Security to assist in verifying citizenship status. Several states attempting to prevent non-citizen voting have enacted laws requiring proof of U.S. citizenship of registrants when registering to vote.
Our current honor system on the part of registrants under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 includes a provision that created a federal voter registration form that requires applicants under penalty of perjury to check a “yes” or “no” box as to whether they are U.S. citizens. However, the federal form does not require any proof of citizenship, and its use has been shown to be ineffective in deterring non-citizens from registering to vote.
This issue has been hotly contested in the courts with advocates for this sensible safeguard against fraudulent voter registration up against a solid flank of left-wing groups such as Common Cause, Project Vote, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In April 2015, the ACRU filed an amicus brief in Kobach v. United States Election Assistance Commission at the U.S. Supreme Court that included evidence that non-citizens in Texas were registering to vote using the federal form. On June 29, 2015, the Supreme Court denied Kansas’s and Arizona’s writ of certiorari petition, thus letting stand a 10th Circuit ruling that the states may not require applicants using the federal voter registration form to show documents proving citizenship when registering to vote in federal races.
ACRU Commentary
News
ACLU Moves to Strike Down Kansas Citizenship Voting Rule
The American Civil Liberties Union and Secretary of State Kris Kobach jockeyed for legal advantage Friday in a court case challenging Kobach's implementation of the state's voter proof-of-citizenship law. Representing Kansas voters who can cast ballots in federal races, but not state and local elections, the ACLU filed a motion for summary judgment that would strike down Kobach's two-tier voting system without a trial. Nearly simultaneously, Kobach filed a motion that would allow him to immediately appeal a judge's ruling that he overstepped his authority by dividing voters into two voting camps, those who registered using a state form and those who registered using a federal form. The case is important because it could let people work around a state law - authored by Kobach - that requires prospective registrants to show documents proving their citizenship before they are granted voting privileges. The proof-of-citizenship requirement is separate from the requirement that voters have to show photo ID when they cast a ballot. While a driver's license is sufficient for Election Day voter ID, the state's voter-registration form requires a higher level of documentation. That can usually be met only with a birth certificate, passport, or special papers issued to foreign-born and tribal citizens. The federal registration form accepts a sworn statement from the voter, signed under penalty of perjury, as proof of citizenship. At Kobach's direction, only voters who can document proof of citizenship are allowed to vote in all federal, state and local elections. Voters who register with the federal form without providing their citizenship papers are only allowed to vote in federal races for president and members of Congress.
Texas Seeks Full Court Rehearing on Voter ID Law
Texas has asked the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rehear civil rights plaintiffs' case against the state's voter ID law after a three-judge panel from the same court ruled that the law discriminates. Because the state's request for a rehearing is pending, and since Texas may also seek a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit in a Sept. 2 order rejected civil rights plaintiffs' proposals to have the litigation remanded to the trial court, where a judge could have ordered Texas to immediately start changing how it identifies voters. "We will get those decisions pretty quickly," Rolando Rios, of San Antonio's Law Office of Rolando L. Rios, said about the rulings on the en banc Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court hearings. Rios represents the Texas Association of Hispanic County Judges and County Commissioners, which is an intervening plaintiff in the litigation. But the U.S. Department of Justice, which has sided with the civil rights plaintiffs in the litigation, wants to avoid any wait for Texas to redo its voter ID procedures. To that end, the DOJ also filed on Sept. 2 a motion requesting that the Fifth Circuit enter an injunction directing Texas to accept as sufficient valid voter registration certificates from voters who lack the specific list of documentation required under the law SB-14, which the Fifth Circuit's three-judge panel struck down. Passed in 2011, SB-14 requires voters to show specific government-issued photo identifications. Among the identifications the law allows voters to show: driver's licenses, concealed handgun licenses, U.S. military identifications, U.S. passports or other U.S. citizenship certificates.
Evenwel v. Abbott
The Supreme Court has an opportunity to determine whether only citizens get a political voice in America. WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 5, 2015) —- In a brief submitted today at the U.S. Supreme Court, the ACRU [...]
The Obama Administration Blocks Efforts to Stop Non-Citizen Voting
Approximately 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in the 2008 presidential election, according to a study released last year by professors at Old Dominion University and George Mason University. The figure for the 2010 midterm elections was 2.2 percent. The Obama administration doesn't care. In fact, it is trying to stamp out state-led efforts that would help ensure that only American citizens are electing our leaders. The latest bureaucratic roadblocks have been erected in Arizona and Kansas, which simply want people to verify their citizenship before voting. To implement their commonsense measures, Arizona and Kansas asked the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) -- a small federal agency that exists primarily to assist the states in creating the federal form citizens use to register to vote by mail -- to add the proof-of-citizenship requirement to the registration instructions specific to Arizona and Kansas. Their request was denied because of the decision of one federal employee in Washington, D.C. Arizona and Kansas sued. A commonsense victory at the district court was overturned by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the fight to restore election integrity has now arrived at the Supreme Court, which is being asked to reverse the decision by the EAC and allow Kansas and Arizona to ensure that only citizens vote in their states. Last week, the Public Interest Legal Foundation filed a brief, on behalf of the , supporting Supreme Court review. The brief explains to the Supreme Court that the so-called safeguards of the federal registration form have unequivocally failed to prevent non-citizen registration.
Kobach v. U.S. Election Assistance Commission
WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 21, 2015) – Non-citizens are registering to vote under current federal law, as shown in documents submitted today by the to the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief asks the high court to [...]
ACRU Supreme Court Brief Reveals Non-Citizens Registering to Vote
WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 21, 2015) --- Non-citizens, even some admitting so on their application forms, are registering to vote under current federal law, as exposed in documents submitted today by the (ACRU) to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to ACRU's brief in Kobach v. U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), of thirteen federal voter registration forms provided to the Court by the ACRU, "Four of the individuals actually checked 'no' on the citizenship question, six checked 'no' and 'yes', and the remaining three left the checkbox blank entirely." Nevertheless, they were all registered to vote. "The left is registering non-citizens to vote every day of the week, using the federal form. Every ineligible vote cancels out the vote of an American citizen," said ACRU Chairman Susan A. Carleson. "Our election process is becoming a mockery. The states need to be allowed to require proof of citizenship to register to vote."