While President Donald Trump’s federal Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act remains stalled in the U.S. Senate, state lawmakers in Rhode Island introduced voting legislation that will require verification of U.S. citizenship.
“There is a lot of political rhetoric regarding validating a voter's identity,” Southeast Missouri State University public policy and political science professor James Newman told NTD. “This is likely in response to the SAVE Act that is before the Senate.”
It requires that REAL ID applicants show U.S. citizenship at the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
“The bill allows prior verification, especially through REAL ID documentation at the DMV, to serve as certification instead of requiring people to prove it again,” Washington, D.C. attorney Andrellos Mitchell told NTD.
Urso did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
A REAL ID is a state-issued driver’s license or identification card that is marked with a star in the upper right-hand corner. The star indicates that the identification card is compliant with federal security standards.
What surprises Newman is that the Rhode Island legislation would automatically register people to vote.
“Some people do not want to be on a voter list,” Newman told NTD. “The advantages are that more eligible citizens are registered to vote.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that requiring citizenship documentation for federal elections without federal or court approval is unlawful.
Rhode Island is the latest to initiate some form of proof of citizenship voting rules at the state level.
For example, in the state of Michigan, some 750,000 petition signatures were submitted in support of requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and audits of existing voter rolls.
The measure demands that new voter registrants show documents like a passport, birth certificate, plus photo ID or naturalization papers.
However, Landmark Legal Foundation attorney Michael O'Neill believes Rhode Island lawmakers can do more.
“It looks like Rhode Island legislators are trying to get ahead of provisions that might be enacted with the SAVE Act,” O'Neill told NTD. “Ideally, I think you need to establish citizenship for more than a real identification card. I believe state election officials should identify and remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. Right now, there's no federal obligation.”
Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Utah all enacted proof of citizenship voting bills in the past few weeks.