Blue States Are Inviting Voter Fraud. Here’s How Congress Can Stop It.

America has been a free country for 250 years thanks to our representative system of government. We the People are in charge of our destiny because we choose our mayors, council members, lawmakers, governors, and presidents. At the foundation of it all is a simple principle: one citizen, one vote. It’s what gives legitimacy to election outcomes. It’s what empowers elected leaders to serve their constituents. And it’s what ensures we can safeguard our liberties as free and equal citizens.

Yet for years, we have watched this principle come under attack. Across the country, blue states have practically invited fraud by taking few precautions to secure their elections—including by failing to verify the citizenship of the people on their voter rolls.

It is against the law for noncitizens to vote in state or federal elections. One of the best ways for states to enforce that restriction is to compare their voter rolls with the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database. This registry allows local, state, and federal agencies to quickly verify the immigration status of anyone in their jurisdiction. Across the country, 26 states—overwhelmingly red—are working with DHS to use the SAVE database and clean up their voter rolls. In Tennessee, we have led the way on voter verification for years and rank first in the nation for election integrity, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Thanks to President Trump, this process is easier than ever. Under his leadership, states can now use the registry for free, eliminating millions of dollars in charges that had been planned under the Biden administration. Agencies can also verify the citizenship of a voter using the last four digits of a Social Security number, rather than all nine. Under President Trump, state voting agencies have submitted more than 46 million verification requests through the database.

While Democrats call voter fraud a myth, the states that use the SAVE database have discovered thousands of noncitizens on their voter rolls. When Texas checked its voter rolls against SAVE, the state’s secretary of state identified more than 2,700 potential noncitizens. Ohio found more than 1,000 potential noncitizens on its voter rolls, including 160 who had cast ballots since 2018. Louisiana discovered more than 400 potential noncitizens registered to vote, dozens of whom had already voted.

With many recent races decided by just hundreds of votes, such fraud has the potential to decide election outcomes. Yet nearly half the states—especially blue ones—do not take the basic step of checking their voter rolls against the SAVE database. That includes California and New York, home to more than 3.5 million illegal aliens combined. We can only imagine how many noncitizens may be sitting on their voter rolls because they take little to no action to verify voters’ citizenship.

New Jersey is another blue state that refuses to use the SAVE database. Just last week, public records requests revealed that there have been hundreds of cases of noncitizens being placed on the state’s voter rolls. Many had no idea they were registered to vote. Some had cast ballots in elections as far back as 2000.

This failure to uphold our election laws is inexcusable. The American people do not want voter fraud. They want to have confidence in election outcomes. They want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat—which is why Congress should do everything possible to encourage states to use the SAVE database to secure our elections.

Alongside Senator Graham, I recently introduced the Election Security Partnership Act, which would provide increased grant funding to states that submit their voter registration lists to DHS to identify ineligible registrations, including those of noncitizens. The bill would also strengthen election administration, technology, and security. Without enforcement, our election laws are a dead letter. Our legislation would give states more reason to enforce the rule of law and secure their elections.

Every member of Congress should support this legislation. Instead of enabling fraud, Democrats should stand with Republicans to clean up voter rolls, back election integrity measures, and make certain that only American citizens can vote. As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, it’s one of the most important things we can do to remain a free people and a free nation.