CHICAGO, IL — House Speaker Mike Johnson is advancing a proposal to fund the federal government that also requires adoption of the SAVE Act, an extreme bill purporting to address non-citizen voting through a proof of citizenship requirement for all applicants registering to vote in federal elections. Non-citizen voting is both already illegal in the United States and exceedingly rare. The House’s funding proposal cleared an initial hurdle today and is expected to receive a final vote tomorrow; the government is currently funded through September 30th.

In addition to the SAVE Act, two House hearings this week take unfounded jabs at U.S. election security. Today, the House Committee on the Judiciary will convene a hearing entitled, “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Noncitizen Voting.” Tomorrow, September 11, the Committee on House Administration will convene a hearing titled, “American Confidence in Elections: Looking Ahead to the 2024 General Election.”

The House passed the SAVE Act in July of 2024 while simultaneously considering an appropriations measure stripping Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding for election administration, denying funding that local officials say is critical to election security.

“The events coming out of the U.S. House of Representatives this week are all a part of broader efforts to undermine trust in our elections and deprive local election officials of the resources they need to administer secure and transparent elections, just weeks shy of a major federal election,” said Sam Oliker-Friedland, executive director of the Institute for Responsive Government. “We should all be alarmed to see elected leaders in some of the highest positions of power calling into question the basic tenets of our democracy for their own political gain. If lawmakers are serious about strengthening the integrity of our elections, they should commit to funding them properly, so that election officials can run the efficient, accessible, secure elections every American voter deserves.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson recently was asked for examples of non-citizen voting and acknowledged there was no data to back up HR 8281: “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.”

Meanwhile, think tanks from across the political spectrum, including the Heritage Foundation, all agree that non-citizen voting is extraordinarily rare.

Earlier this year, the Institute for Responsive Government Action issued a memo outlining productive ways lawmakers genuinely interested in supporting election integrity can take action, including:

• Adequately funding elections,
• Providing proper support and resources for local election officials (who face heightened levels of harassment and violence, largely due to misinformation about election integrity), and
• Adopting policies proven to be most effective for engaging only eligible voters and effectively maintaining voter rolls — like secure automatic voter registration (SAVR)

To speak with Sam Oliker-Friedland or other Responsive Gov experts about the SAVE Act, noncitizen voting, or strengthening U.S. elections, please contact dan@responsivegov.org.