House approves bill to block noncitizen voting in D.C. local elections

The GOP-led House passed a bill with bipartisan support on Thursday to prevent noncitizens from voting in Washington, D.C., local elections as part of a push for election integrity.

Fifty-two Democrats joined with 210 Republicans voting in favor of the legislation, while 143 Democrats and no GOP lawmakers opposed it. Twenty-five members, including seven Republicans and 18 Democrats, did not vote.

The bill, H.R. 192, specifically bars noncitizens from voting in “an election for public office in the District of Columbia or in any ballot initiative or referendum in the District of Columbia.”

It also repeals the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, a D.C. measure that allowed noncitizen residents of the nation’s capital to vote in local but not federal elections. Noncitizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections.

“In Washington, DC, noncitizens including illegal aliens and foreign agents are allowed to vote in local elections,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), who introduced H.R. 192, said in a post to X. “Noncitizen voting dilutes the voting power of the citizen voter.”

His Democrat colleague Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is D.C.’s nonvoting delegate in the House, argued in a statement that D.C. residents should be able to govern their own local affairs without intervention by members of Congress.

“D.C. laws are matters for the duly elected D.C. Council and mayor, not unaccountable members of Congress who do not represent D.C. residents,” Norton said. “The almost 700,000 D.C. residents are worthy and capable of governing their own local affairs.”

House Republicans are pressing forward with election integrity bills with an eye toward the illegal immigration crisis, including legislation dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act that would require proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration.

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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Fox News on Thursday that the House would consider the SAVE Act “right after” the Memorial Day holiday, which is next week.

“We’ll get that passed and that will solve that problem on the federal election basis. We’ve got to do that; we have an absolute responsibility,” Johnson said.

The legislative push is unlikely to gain much headway outside the House given that the Senate and the White House, but it still gives GOP lawmakers room to argue they are working to make voting more secure in a presidential election year.