1 in 10 eligible U.S. voters say they can't [Are too stupid to...] easily show proof of their citizenship

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/11/nx-s1-4991903/voter-registration-proof-of-
citizenship-requirement

Top Republicans are lining up behind a proposal to require proof of U.S. 
citizenship for voter registration in federal elections. But for millions 
of U.S. citizens, it’s not easy to prove their citizenship with a 
document.

About 1 in 10 adult citizens, or 21.3 million eligible voters, say they 
either do not have or could not quickly find in order to show the next day 
their U.S. birth certificate, passport, naturalization certificate or 
certificate of citizenship, according to results released Tuesday from a 
national survey.

The new findings, shared first with NPR, also show disparities by race, 
ethnicity and political affiliation.

U.S. citizens of color are more likely than white citizens, who do not 
identify as Latino, to say they lack citizenship documents (3% of people 
of color compared to 1% of white people) or can’t readily access them (11% 
of people of color vs. 8% of white people). Independents are more likely 
to report that they don’t have documents (4%) compared to Democrats (2%) 
and Republicans (1%). They are also more likely to report not having ready 
document access (13%) than Democrats (10%) and Republicans (7%).

The results fall in line with longstanding concerns among many election 
experts and voting rights advocates, who have warned that proposals — 
including the new Republican-backed bill in the U.S. House of 
Representatives — to require people to show documentary proof of 
citizenship when signing up to vote in federal elections could risk 
keeping eligible voters from casting ballots.

“We've got a huge crisis on our hands when we think about the people who 
lack the documents required to prove their citizenship and identity. And 
we really need to think about the far-reaching implications for that when 
it comes to economic and social and voting access,” says Lauren Kunis, 
executive director of VoteRiders, a voting rights organization focused on 
voter ID issues that sponsored the survey alongside groups including the 
Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school and the 
University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.

How election officials verify citizenship without documents
Federal law requires states to accept registration forms that call for 
applicants to swear under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens 
and review this warning: “If I have provided false information, I may be 
fined, imprisoned, or (if not a U.S. citizen) deported from or refused 
entry to the United States.” Most states also use applicants’ driver’s 
license or Social Security numbers to check people’s citizenship 
information in government agency databases.

Still, a group of House Republicans rolled out a bill last month to 
require all eligible voters to show documentary proof of citizenship when 
registering to vote in federal elections. Applicants who cannot provide an 
acceptable document would be able to sign a sworn statement about their 
U.S. citizenship and submit “other evidence” to a state official, who 
would decide whether the applicant has “sufficiently established” 
citizenship.

While the proposal is unlikely to become law in this divided Congress, the 
GOP lawmakers say they want to address the rare and illegal practice of 
non-U.S. citizens casting ballots for federal races — a talking point that 
former President Donald Trump and his supporters have long boosted.

“We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal 
elections, but it's not been something that is easily provable. We don't 
have that number,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from 
Louisiana, at a press conference about the Safeguard American Voter 
Eligibility Act.

Numbers that are available, however, indicate that noncitizens cast 
ballots in exceedingly small numbers in federal elections.

“By making these requirements more strict, you're more likely to catch 
people who actually do have the documents or are able to verify their 
identity but, just because of happenstance or some quirk, are unable to do 
so at the very moment when they need to in order to vote,” says Bernard 
Fraga, an associate professor of political science at Emory University, 
who has researched the impact of voter ID laws.

Why showing proof of citizenship can be a hurdle
The latest results from the national survey, which was conducted last 
September and October, are a reminder that the financial and logistical 
hurdles to getting a citizenship document or keeping one on hand should 
not be overlooked, Fraga adds.

“I think that the broader story that we see here is the idea that what for 
many Americans doesn't seem like that big of an issue — demonstrating that 
you're a citizen — for some Americans is actually enough of a hurdle to 
make voting just inaccessible,” Fraga says.

Kunis, VoteRiders’ executive director, says her organization has helped 
eligible voters overcome a range of barriers to obtaining citizenship 
documents. They may be stored inside a bank’s safe deposit box or tucked 
away at a family member’s home in another town or state. Some people may 
need support navigating a “bureaucratic doom loop” when trying to replace 
faded certificates, Kunis adds.

And for more than 3.8 million adult citizens, or about 2% of eligible 
voters, there’s no document to find at all, according to the survey’s 
estimates. That includes birth certificates.

“Older Americans and Black Americans, particularly in the South, are more 
likely to have been born outside of a hospital setting, meaning they 
didn't receive a birth certificate automatically,” Kunis points out.

What is driving these calls for proof of citizenship?
While the survey found that requiring proof of citizenship would likely 
disproportionately affect historically underrepresented groups, including 
people of color and political independents, Michael Hanmer, a professor of 
government and politics, who directs the University of Maryland’s Center 
for Democracy and Civic Engagement, notes that the results also show that 
these requirements would still affect other groups.

“There's not a whole lot of evidence that, for example, stricter laws 
about proof of citizenship are going to solve problems with fraud because 
there really aren't problems with fraud,” Hanmer says. “That leads you to 
wonder, ‘Well, what might be going on here?’ And if there's political 
reasons behind it, then our results suggest that that should be rethought 
because this is not going to just hit one group. It's going to hit 
everybody.”

In New Hampshire, Republican-led proposals would change the state’s 
election laws to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote 
in the state for the first time. Federal courts struck down a similar 
Kansas state law — which was backed by former Kansas Secretary of State 
Kris Kobach, a Republican who is the state’s current attorney general and 
once served as vice chair of Trump’s short-lived voter fraud commission — 
for violating the 14th Amendment and the National Voter Registration Act.

And there is an ongoing legal fight over Arizona’s now-blocked proof-of-
citizenship requirements that ban registered voters who have not provided 
proof from voting in presidential elections or by mail for any federal 
office. The Republican National Committee, along with Arizona’s top GOP 
state lawmakers, are appealing a federal judge’s ruling that found the 
National Voter Registration Act preempts the state’s restrictions.

With no evidence that noncitizens are voting in numbers significant enough 
to sway election outcomes, Sean Morales-Doyle — director of the voting 
rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for 
expanded voter access — says calls to enact requirements like these are 
fueled instead by baseless claims of widespread voter fraud from Trump and 
his allies.

“They're trying to lay the groundwork for the ability to call the outcome 
into question if they aren't happy about the outcome later,” Morales-Doyle 
says. “We've seen this playbook before and we're seeing it play out 
again.”


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November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.