VICTOR JOECKS: Democrats fight for insecure elections

Democrats’ plan for election security is akin to asking a teenagers if they’re old enough to buy alcohol rather than demanding ID.

On Wednesday, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act. It would require would-be voters to prove they’re citizens when registering to vote in federal elections. Making sure only citizens vote doesn’t sound like a controversial idea. Yet almost every House Democrat opposed the measure, including Southern Nevada’s three Democrat representatives.

“This xenophobic attack that we’re debating today will make it harder for Americans to vote,” Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., said about the bill.

Democrats hurl around words such as “xenophobic” or “sexist” to avoid debating the underlying issue. But take a moment to follow Lee’s thinking. Xenophobic means fearful of foreigners. So Lee contends that requiring would-be voters to prove they’re citizens will negatively affect foreigners. In other words, she’s upset about making it harder for non-Americans to vote in American elections. The unstated implication of her attack is that noncitizens are voting, and she would very much like to keep it that way. Incredible.

She’s not the only one. The national legacy media consistently disparages those who raise concerns about this and other election security issues. In April, The Associated Press asserted, “Noncitizen voting isn’t an issue in federal elections, regardless of conspiracy theories.” The AP claims that making voters sign a form swearing they are U.S. citizens “has generally worked.” Immigrants “don’t want to violate the law.”

This overly broad statement can’t withstand even mild scrutiny. For one, the idea that the honor system should replace identity checks is laughable when applied to other situations. Imagine somebody arguing that teenagers wouldn’t be more likely to purchase alcohol if they could do so simply by checking a box “verifying” they’re 21 instead of showing ID.

Another issue: More than 20 states have automatic voter registration. In Nevada, the DMV automatically registers people. This leads to noncitizens being registered to vote. In 2021, I interviewed Helena Schneider, a Canadian citizen living in Clark County, after she received a voter registration card following a DMV visit. “I can’t believe that they did that, and I’m wondering, ‘How many other people?’ ” she said.

That’s the question progressives and the national media have no interest in answering. But it’s a pressing one. That’s especially true in Nevada, which automatically mails out ballots. An immigrant — who may not even realize he registered to vote — could reasonably conclude it’s legal to vote because the government sent him a ballot.

In 2021, the Nevada secretary of state’s office issued a report on alleged problems in the 2020 election. It found 4,057 instances of people who used an immigration document at the DMV and voted in the 2020 election. That’s a major red flag. Instead of investigating, officials gave up, citing the lack of access to federal immigration data. It’s possible, the report speculated, that those voters could have become citizens.

Sure, it’s possible. But it’s also possible that many didn’t.

That pattern has been repeated around the country. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, have ample opportunities to register to vote. As the Heritage Foundation points out, evidence suggests millions of immigrants are registered to vote and many do so.

Instead of looking into the scope of the problem, the left smears those concerned about this as conspiracy theorists. It’s the same move they pulled on those who pointed out President Joe Biden’s mental decline before his debate meltdown. Look how that turned out. The left’s willful blindness on issues such as this is why conservative conspiracy theories keep coming true.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.