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Chairman Steil's full opening statement as prepared for delivery:
The U.S. Constitution protects the right of citizens of the United States to vote in our elections.
In fact, federal law makes it a felony for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
Most, but not all states outlaw noncitizen voting in their elections.
American elections are for American citizens.
And we intend to keep it that way.
Recently, we have seen Democrat-run cities allowing noncitizen voting in local elections.
Washington D.C., New York, Maryland, California, and others have passed legislation to allow noncitizens to vote in elections.
This causes a host of problems for a state to maintain clean voter registration lists – let me explain.
The National Voter Registration Act was enacted to help increase the number of eligible American citizens that are registered to vote.
By giving applicants voter registration forms when getting a driver’s license, more individuals are likely to register.
However, noncitizens here legally are entitled to federal and State benefits, including a driver’s license.
That means in some circumstances, noncitizens also receive those same voter registration forms.
My concern is that this interpretation of the NVRA makes it difficult for States to maintain clean voter lists.
We should be giving States tools to ensure their voter rolls are clean as we approach November’s election.
Yet jurisdictions allowing noncitizen voting like Washington D.C., are only required to keep one voter list.
Maintaining one clean list with U.S. citizens and noncitizen voters presents challenges.
Let’s take a look at examples of these challenges where the NVRA was misinterpreted in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
In 2022, the Public Interest Legal Foundation found Pennsylvania had allowed noncitizens to register to vote – FOR DECADES.
Pennsylvania later publicly admitted that due to an alleged programming “glitch”, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation had allowed noncitizens to register to vote.
Last week, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose ordered the state’s voter rolls be cleaned after a review found more than 100 noncitizens in Ohio were registered to vote.
These examples raise serious concerns.
In DC, the Board of Elections says it is on the noncitizen to understand they cannot vote in federal races.
Right now, roughly 500 noncitizens are registered to vote in our nation’s capital.
Let me be clear - Noncitizen voting reduces confidence in our elections.
Washington, DC is setting a new standard that could soon be applied across the country.
We must stop noncitizen voting.
That’s why our Committee passed my bill, the American Confidence in Elections Act.
One section of the bill allows States to access federal databases that contain citizenship information so noncitizens can be removed from the voter rolls.
As we continue to see foreign actors interested in influencing our elections, our current practices should cause us all concern.
Since President Biden took office, over 7 million illegal immigrants have crossed the Southern Border.
We must ensure our elections are secure and running properly without foreign influence.
Yet last month, DC mailed this postcard around the city encouraging noncitizens to vote in local elections.
In response, I sent a letter to the DC Board of Elections about this postcard.
The DC Board is actively hosting virtual town halls encouraging noncitizens to vote.
To vote in local elections in our nation’s capital, you must reside in DC for only 30 days.
That means any noncitizen who moves to DC by October 5th can vote in this year’s election.
If any of the 7 million migrants move to DC by this October, they can vote in the upcoming election.
They don’t even need to show their ID!
This does not instill confidence in our elections.
The Committee on House Administration has broad oversight of our nation’s federal elections—including here in our nation’s capital.
We have passed a bill to require citizenship to vote in DC elections.
Republicans on this committee are committed to ending noncitizen voting.
We will also discuss the role foreign nationals play in our elections by contributing to nonprofits today.
Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from contributing to campaigns.
However, we have seen foreign nationals use a loophole to get around this.
Yesterday, I introduced legislation to close this loophole.
When our Committee heard from all six commissioners on the Federal Election Commission last year, every commissioner agreed that this loophole should be closed.
I’m hopeful we can all agree that only American citizens should be contributing and voting in our democracy.
I would like to thank our witnesses for joining us today to discuss these important topics.?
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