[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 115 (Thursday, July 11, 2024)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E719-E720]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                SAFEGUARD AMERICAN VOTER ELIGIBILITY ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. JOSEPH D. MORELLE

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 10, 2024

  Mr. MORELLE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to include in the Record the 
following: 1) an article from NBC News, headlined ``Speaker Mike 
Johnson and Trump allies who tried to overturn the 2020 election roll 
out voting 'integrity' bill,'' 2) a letter from the AFL-CIO expressing 
the organization's strong opposition to the SAVE Act, and 3) a letter 
from Common Cause, expressing the organization's strong opposition to 
the SAVE Act.

                             [May 8, 2024]

 Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump Allies Who Tried To Overturn the 2020 
               Election Roll Out Voting `Integrity' Bill

       Washington--Same of the conservative leaders of the effort 
     to overturn the 2020 presidential election gathered in front 
     of the Capitol on Wednesday and called on Congress to pass an 
     ``election integrity'' bill to stop noncitizens from voting.
       Leading the group, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., 
     acknowledged that undocumented immigrants voting in elections 
     is already illegal under federal law. ``Some have noted that 
     it's already a crime for noncitizens to vote in a federal 
     election, and that is true,'' Johnson said.
       But he argued that people know ``intuitively'' that 
     noncitizens are voting, even though he could not provide 
     estimates of how many. Multiple studies have shown that 
     noncltizen voting is extremely rare in federal elections.
       ``I mean, the answer is that it's unanswerable,'' Johnson 
     said ``That is the problem . . . 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. This legislation will allow us to do 
     exactly that. It will prevent that from happening. And if 
     someone tries to do it, it will now be unlawful within the 
     states. We'll have a mechanism to prove whether they are or 
     not.''
       A constitutional lawyer and close Donald Trump ally, 
     Johnson played a pivotal role in Trump's push to overturn the 
     2020 election. He led the amicus brief, signed by more than 
     100 House Republicans, backing a Texas lawsuit seeking to 
     invalidate the 2020 election results in four key swing states 
     won by President Joe Biden.
       Johnson was joined Wednesday by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and 
     Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, two lawmakers whose text messages to 
     then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were featured 
     prominently in the Jan. 6 committee's investigation into the 
     attack.
       Others on hand included a who's who of MAGA conservatives. 
     Among them were Stephen Miller, the former White House senior 
     adviser to Trump, Jenny Beth Martin, the Tea Party Patriots 
     co-founder who was outside the capitol with a bullhorn on 
     Jan. 6, 2021; and Clete Mitchell, the conservative activist 
     who was on the January 2021 call with Trump when he told 
     Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ``find'' 
     11,000 votes, enough to overturn the state's election 
     results.
       Two other former Trump administration officials, Hogan 
     Gidley and Ken Cuccinelli, also spoke Wednesday.
       When asked at the news conference whether he accepts the 
     2020 election results, Johnson replied ``What we're talking 
     about today is the 2024 election''.
       But he went on to say ``Nobody can go back and relitigate 
     what happened in 2020. We know that there was ballot 
     harvesting, we know that there was mail-in ballots. It was 
     the Covid election. There was all sorts of irregularity 
     occasioned by the pandemic, where states haphazardly put 
     together new laws and opened up the systems and led to all 
     sorts of confusion and chaos and concern that lingers even to 
     the day.''
       (``Ballot harvesting'' refers to a third party, such as a 
     family member, collecting voted ballots to return. 
     Conservatives have lambasted the practice, but the RNC is 
     embracing it in the 2024 elections ``where legal''.)
       Miller, who's burnished a reputation in Washington as an 
     anti-immigration hard-liner, attempted to troll the media and 
     Democrats as he stood on the same House steps where Trump 
     supporters had climbed and overtaken police officers on Jan. 
     6, 2021.
       ``Democracy in America is under attack,'' Miller said. He 
     railed against the ``wide-open border and obstruction of any 
     effort to verify the citizenship of who votes in our 
     elections''.
       Despite the lack of evidence of noncitizen voting, Miller 
     echoed unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that Democrats are 
     importing voters to help Biden win re-election.
       Johnson first unveiled the framework of the legislation 
     last month, standing with Trump during a visit to his Mar-a-
     Lago resort. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or 
     SAVE Act, would make it harder to register people to vote by 
     requiring proof of citizenship. That could include showing a 
     U.S. passport, a photo ID showing that the individual was 
     born in the United States, or a birth certificate--documents 
     that millions of Americans do not have access to, voting 
     rights advocates say.
       The speaker pushed back when NBC News pointed out that the 
     legislation would not go anywhere in the Democratic-
     controlled Senate or be signed into law by Biden.
       ``This is not a messaging bill. This is one of the most 
     substantive . . . most important pieces of legislation that 
     will be presented within our lifetime, in our congressional 
     careers. This is at the essence of what it means to have a 
     constitutional republic. If people cannot rely upon the 
     integrity of that system, then we have nothing,'' Johnson 
     said.
       ``And so we'll do it out of the House and we'll send it to 
     the Senate, and we'll let Chuck Schumer decide whether he 
     agrees with that sentiment or not,'' Johnson said. ``We're 
     not doing this for messaging purposes.''


                                                      AFL-CIO,

                                                    July 10, 2024.
       Dear Representative: On behalf of the 12.5 million workers 
     and 60 affiliate unions represented by the AFL-CIO, I write 
     to express our strong opposition to H.R. 8281, the ``Secure 
     America's Voters and Elections (SAVE) Act.'' This bill 
     mandates proof of citizenship documentation to register to 
     vote, despite current federal laws already prohibiting 
     noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Our current 
     electoral system effectively ensures that only eligible 
     voters participate, with no evidence of widespread fraud 
     found in numerous recounts and investigations.
       The SAVE Act creates unnecessary barriers to voter 
     participation, especially for marginalized communities who 
     may struggle to obtain such documentation. It limits 
     acceptable IDs to passports, excluding others like REAL ID 
     driver's licenses and military IDs unless coupled with 
     additional documentation such as a birth certificate. This 
     places an extreme burden on many Americans, including 
     military personnel, Native Americans, those who have changed 
     their names (particularly women), the elderly, the young, the 
     poor, and naturalized citizens.
       The bill introduces criminal penalties for election 
     officials who register voters without documented proof of 
     citizenship, risking fear and hesitation among these 
     officials. Additionally, it mandates the already overburdened 
     Social Security Administration to verify voter citizenship 
     information for states without providing additional funding.
       Moreover, the bill mandates that states immediately remove 
     non-citizens from voter rolls upon receipt of proof or 
     verified information of non-citizenship. This risks 
     erroneously disenfranchising eligible voters due to potential 
     administrative errors and unreliable data sources. The use of 
     third-party databases to verify citizenship raises concerns 
     about data accuracy, privacy, and potential 
     disenfranchisement. Clarifying that provisional ballots can 
     only be counted if citizenship is verified adds further 
     hurdles for voters facing administrative errors or 
     documentation issues. These measures further limit the 
     accessibility and inclustvity of our electoral process.
       In short, the SAVE Act functions to deny Americans access 
     to their democracy, not improve election integrity. Congress 
     must safeguard free and fair elections and ensure all 
     Americans can exercise their right to vote by opposing the 
     SAVE Act and supporting measures that enhance voter 
     participation, inclusivity, and the integrity of our 
     electoral process.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Jody Calemine,
     Director, Government Affairs.
                                  ____



                                                 Common Cause,

                                                     July 9, 2024.

Common Cause Urges ``No'' Vote on the ``SAVE'' Act; Will ``Score'' Vote 
                    in our 2024 Democracy Scorecard

       Dear Representative: On behalf of Common Cause's more than 
     1.5 million members, we write in strong opposition to the 
     ``SAVE Act'' (H.R. 8281) and urge a ``no'' vote. We will 
     score this vote in our forthcoming 2024 Democracy Scorecard 
     that we send to national and state press, as well as all of 
     our members.
       The ``SAVE Act'' is a solution in search of a problem. 
     Noncitizen voting is already illegal at the federal level and 
     is not allowed at the state level in any state. In fact, all 
     voters are already required to affirm or verify their 
     citizenship status when registering to vote in federal 
     elections.
       There is cross-ideological recognition that voting by 
     people who aren't U.S. citizens is

[[Page E720]]

     incredibly rare. A comprehensive analysis by the Brennan 
     Center for Justice from the 2016 general election found that 
     out of 23.5 million votes in 42 jurisdictions, only an 
     estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting were 
     referred for further investigation or prosecution. This 
     amounts to just 0.0001 percent of votes cast. Additionally, 
     the Cato Institute concluded in 2020 that ``there is no good 
     evidence that noncitizens voted illegally in large enough 
     numbers to actually shift the outcome of elections.'' And a 
     Heritage Foundation analysis of legal actions regarding 
     election conduct found only 24 instances of noncitizens 
     voting between 2003 and 2023.
       Requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote would 
     disenfranchise millions of Republican, Democratic, and 
     independent voters who don't have a passport, birth 
     certificate, or other form of identification required under 
     this bill. This would disproportionately affect women, voters 
     of color, poorer Americans, and older Americans, thus 
     creating further barriers for these communities, many of whom 
     already face hurdles to having their voices heard.
       We therefore urge a ``no'' vote on the ``SAVE Act'' and 
     call on the House of Representatives to instead vote on pro-
     voter bills like the Freedom to Vote Act and John R. Lewis 
     Voting Rights Advancement Act.
           Sincerely,
                                            Virginia Kase Solomon,
     President & CEO, Common Cause.

                          ____________________