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On Friday, 70 Republicans members of Congress sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking about “the efforts undertaken by your Department to enforce the law that prohibits non-citizens from voting in our elections.”
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville and Alabama Congressmen Barry Moore and Gary Palmer were among the signatories.
The letter follows the House of Representatives passing the SAVE Act, or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, last Wednesday. While arguing for the SAVE Act, Moore, Palmer, Tuberville, and other Republican members of Congress all referenced theories that Democrats want to let illegal immigrants vote in order to win elections.
After Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer indicated he wouldn’t be putting the bill up for a vote, Tuberville said “Democrats hate fair elections because they can’t win them” in a quote tweet of Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah.
In the speech of Lee’s that Tuberville shared, the junior senator from Utah said the bill would “secure elections operating within our constitutional republic.” Lee also signed Friday’s letter to the DOJ.
Earlier in July, Lee retweeted Elon Musk calling people who oppose the SAVE Act traitors and asking “What is the penalty for traitors again?” A concrete illustration of the emotion aroused by allegations of noncitizen voting, this appears to have been Musk and Lee supporting the death penalty for people who oppose the SAVE Act: the most famous punishment for treason.
As evidence that noncitizen voting is a problem, the Congressional letter mentions voter registration forms allegedly being given to noncitizens in South Carolina, an investigation finding more than 1,600 noncitizens tried to register to vote in Georgia, and the Ohio secretary of state finding noncitizens on state voter rolls.
However, like Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, the letter does not mention that anyone who fills out a voter registration form has to affirm that they are a U.S. citizen “under penalty of perjury.”
The letter also does not mention that the Georgia investigation “spanned from 1997 until as recently as February 24, 2022,” a full quarter of a century. It does not mention that none of the “more than 1,600 non-citizens” were ever actually allowed to register.
And it does not mention that Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said noncitizens registering to vote in his state could easily be “the result of an honest mistake,” or that no one has been charged two months later.
The letter asks AG Garland to provide Congress with the number of noncitizens who have been charged under several voting statutes, as well as the number of referrals. It also requests specific information about how the DOJ has been investigating and prosecuting noncitizen voting and how it is preparing for the 2024 election.
The members of Congress asked Garland to respond “no later than July 26, 2024.”
