Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Thursday introduced a bill intended to stop illegal immigrants from voting in Washington, D.C.
The Georgia Republican announced her District of Columbia Voter Identification Act, which would mandate three vital election-integrity measures.
Greene’s bill would:
- Limit voter registration in Washington, D.C., to only U.S. citizens
- Implement a mandatory photo ID requirement for both in-person and mail-in voting
- Establish the use of “photo poll books,” which would provide election officials an encyclopedia of eligible voters’ photos, provided by D.C. government agencies or taken at a polling precinct or if a photo is not already available. The photos would be strictly for elections and not be used for any other purpose.
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The District of Columbia’s current system only requires voters to present proof of residence the first time they vote. Once voters are registered, D.C. election officials cross-reference names in the district’s poll books, without requiring a voter to present a photo ID.
In February, the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter enforcement of immigration laws, noted that the D.C. City Council passed a bill to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in city elections.
The center estimated that likely half of the 42,000 voting-age noncitizens in the nation’s capital were illegal. For context, the group added, D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser won her party’s nomination by just 11,000 votes.
“While it is objectionable enough that legal noncitizens can vote before they become naturalized Americans, the D.C. law goes further to grant voting rights to people whose very presence in the U.S. is illegal,” the CIS said in a statement at the time. “That is an even more significant debasement of citizenship and the rule of law.”
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In a statement, Greene said, “Only American citizens should be voting in American elections. That’s why I introduced the District of Columbia Voter Identification Act to safeguard election integrity by implementing mandatory photo voter ID and ensuring only American citizens are casting ballots by instituting a citizenship requirement for voter registration.”
“Not only will this force the DC Board of Elections to ensure only American citizens vote in our nation’s capital,” she added, “this will set a standard and precedent for the rest of the country to follow.”
According to Ballotpedia, three states — California, Maryland, and Vermont — allow local governments to set their own rules that could allow illegal immigrants to vote in local elections.
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