A bill requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship just passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is advancing to the Senate.
Last Thursday, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act. The legislation requires voters to provide proof of citizenship, including REAL ID driver’s licenses, to participate in elections. Standard driver’s licenses would no longer be accepted.
Last week, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane spoke on election security at the federal House Election Subcommittee in Washington. Before the hearing, McGrane told Boise State Public Radio what he planned to discuss.
“A really hot topic is just citizenship validation. In order for us to be able to do that, we can't just do it as Idaho alone. We need our partners in the other states, as well as the federal government, to be able to do that," McGrane said.
This includes implementation of the state’s 2024 Only Citizens Can Vote Act executive order, which requires all Idaho voters’ citizenship status to be reviewed each election cycle.
The order was followed by a constitutional amendment Idaho voters approved in fall that explicitly says only U.S. citizens can vote, even though existing laws already ban noncitizens from casting ballots.
At the hearing, McGrane said all 1.1 million Idaho voter registrations were audited by the state this last election. He said it the state is “easily determining citizenship for the overwhelming majority, but then really dialing it in to a case by case basis to narrow it down to 34 individuals who were non-citizens on Idaho's voter rolls."
That’s about .003% of the voting population in last year's election.
Idaho checks the voter registry to purge inactive voters every two years.
The committee asked McGrane why Idaho recently banned student IDs for voter identification. He said it didn’t change voter turnout, and that Idaho is looking into requiring REAL ID Star Cards for voting.
“We have the real ID taking effect. We all see this when we travel. All of us experience it. This is something that we can do.”
Idaho’s REAL ID Star Card program takes effect on May 7.
A 2024 study by the University of Maryland finds roughly 21 million registered voters don’t have easy access to proof of citizenship. That’s 9% of the country’s voting population.
