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How debate over proof-of-citizenship laws reopened after decades [1]
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Date: 2025-04-05
Congress decided in 1993 that they posed an unfair barrier to voter registration. Trump and the Republicans are reaching a different conclusion.
By
It’s 2025. Do you know where your birth certificate is? How about your passport?
If Republican officials get their way, more Americans will need to know the answers to those questions before they could register to vote. And for millions of Americans who don’t have easy access to citizenship documentation, voting rights advocates say, not knowing the answers will cost them that opportunity.
New Hampshire, Wyoming, and Louisiana have already passed laws requiring that anyone registering to vote provide citizenship proof. Many other states, including Michigan and Texas, are considering it. The U.S. House will consider the SAVE Act, federal legislation to require it nationwide, as early as next week.
And this week, President Donald Trump — in an executive order that’s almost certain to face challenges in the courts — asserted his authority to make the proof-of-citizenship requirement the law of the land, almost by presidential fiat.
Related | Trump launches new ‘lawless’ attack on voting rights
Republicans around the country, from Trump on down, have been raising alarm for several years about the threat of noncitizens voting in large numbers, even though audits, investigations, and other checks have found almost no evidence that it happens more than rarely. And they’ve leveraged that message to promote proof-of-citizenship law as an urgently needed solution to this vaporous threat. That is, Republicans argue that noncitizen voting, or the potential for it, is a big enough problem to merit an overhaul to the way jurisdictions across the nation handle voter registration — and big enough to justify the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters who can’t easily comply with the requirements.
We’ve had this debate before. Three decades ago, Congress considered allowing states to require proof of citizenship, and it has revisited the issue since. There’s a lengthy record of arguments over whether the benefits of such a requirement would outweigh the burdens it would place on eligible voters, and also on the state and local election officials who would have to administer it.
A bowl of voting stickers in Steubenville, Ohio.
Until now, Congress has decided the answer is no.
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