by Natalia Mittelstadt
Election integrity policies are gaining popularity and acceptance among the general public, even as Democrats oppose them, saying they are merely part of right-wing lies.
Democrats have opposed a wide range of election integrity rules that most Americans believe are necessary to ensure election security, from banning noncitizens from voting to requiring voter IDs.
In fact, only five House Democrats voted Wednesday night for legislation passed in the GOP-controlled chamber aimed at ensuring that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections.
This Protecting America’s Voting Rights Act (SAVE) intends to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require states to require individuals registering to vote in federal elections to provide documentation proving their citizenship and to remove noncitizens from their voter registrations.
While non-citizens are voting ban in federal, state and most local elections in California, Maryland, Vermont and Washington, let them vote in local elections.
Biden Administration published a political statement On Monday, he opposed the House bill, saying, “The purported justification for this bill is based on easily disproven falsehoods. Furthermore, making false statements about citizenship or voting illegally in an election is punishable by removal from the United States and eternal inadmissibility.
“States already have effective safeguards in place to verify voter eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls.”
Before the SAVE Act passed, the office of House Minority Leader Katherine Clark, whose job is to recommend how rank-and-file Democrats in the chambers should vote on bills, issued a statement calling colleagues “VOTE NO” on the SAVE Act.
“As we have seen time and again in this Congress, House Republicans continue to irresponsibly question the credibility of our elections,” the statement read. “Despite numerous recounts, court challenges, and in-depth analysis by conservative think tanks, there is no evidence of the widespread fraud that this bill allegedly targets. Under current law, it is already illegal for noncitizens to register to vote or vote in federal elections.”
On the social platform X, Tim Pool, host of the Timcast IRL podcast, Axios story republished on Democrats opposing the SAVE Act, asking, “What? Why? Who disagrees?”
Elon Musk replied to Pool’s post from Sunday, in which he wrote: “Because they want to cheat.”
On Friday, Musk reposted former House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote of the SAVE Act: “Those who oppose it are traitors. Capital letters: TRAITORS. What is the punishment for traitors?”
This week, Musk expressed support for a number of election integrity issues.
He published on Monday“When combined with postal voting, this system is *designed* to make it impossible to prove fraud.
“Post-mail and drop-off voting should not be allowed because cameras at polling stations where people vote in person would prevent large-scale fraud by counting the number of people who showed up against the number of votes cast.”
On Tuesday, Musk wrote“Electronic voting machines and anything mailed in are too risky. We should mandate paper-only voting and in-person voting.”
Later on Tuesday, he shared a post from X’s “End Wokeness” account, which said, “Argentina hand-counted 99.9% of its 27 million paper votes in less than 6 hours. There’s no reason it can’t be done here.”
Musk’s re-post he said, “It should be a requirement. If Argentina can do it, America can do it!”
The billionaire entrepreneur’s concerns about the election mirror those of most Americans.
According to Rasmussen Reports survey conducted last month, 66% of likely U.S. voters said they were concerned that the 2024 presidential election result could be fraudulent.
The poll was conducted on June 5, 6 and 9 among 1,051 likely voters in the U.S., and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Some of Musk’s views on election integrity appear to align with those of many Americans.
According to January Pew Research Center PollEighty-two percent of U.S. adults said they favor requiring electronic voting machines to print backup copies of ballots. A total of 81 percent of survey respondents said they favored showing a government-issued photo ID to vote.
Election integrity policies that nearly half of U.S. adults support include banning the collection of immense numbers of completed ballots from voters in groups (47%) and removing voters from registration rolls if they have not recently voted or have not verified their registration (44%).
The poll was conducted Jan. 16-21 among 5,140 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.
Voter ID is one of the most popular election integrity policies, and more and more states have recently implemented it.
Currently, in accordance with analysis conducted by Movement Advancement ProjectIn 11 states, a photo ID is required to vote, and if a voter does not have an ID, they must take additional steps. In four states, a voter must show a non-photo ID and must take additional steps if they do not have an ID.
Over the past year, Georgia, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio faced lawsuits by left-wing groups over their voter ID laws.
Bills like the SAVE Act, which mandates that only citizens vote in federal elections, would also be popular with American voters.
In July 2023 poll conducted by Honest Elections Project89% of registered voters believe only Americans should vote in elections. The 89% of voters includes 78% of Latino voters, 80% of Black voters and 82% of Democrats.
The poll also found that 89% of voters believe every vote should be received by Election Day, and 76% believe in-person voting is better than mail-in voting. As for ballot harvesting, 74% of voters believe it should be illegal.
The poll was conducted July 13-16, 2023, among 1,600 registered voters. The margin of error is 2.45%.
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Natalia Mittelstadt is a reporter for Just the News.
