Here’s Why Republicans Are Focusing on Voting by Noncitizens

House Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, which is allowed in some local elections but illegal — and exceedingly rare — at the federal level.

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A polling place in Washington, D.C. Republicans want to roll back a law in the capital that allows noncitizen residents to vote in local elections.

House Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, part of an effort to sow doubts about the election outcome and take aim at immigrants who they say have no business participating in elections in the United States.

They are planning on Wednesday to push through a bill that would roll back a Washington, D.C., law allowing noncitizen residents of the nation’s capital to vote in local elections. And they are pushing legislation that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, in person when registering an individual to vote and require states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls.

Neither is likely to pass the Democratic-led Senate or be signed by President Biden, but both are ways for Republicans to call attention to their false claims of widespread illegal voting by noncitizens.

Former President Donald J. Trump has long claimed in the face of evidence to the contrary that presidential and congressional elections are susceptible to widespread voter fraud and illegal voting by undocumented immigrants who have skewed the outcomes in favor of Democrats — a charge that House Republicans have echoed.

Here are the facts about noncitizen voting and the false claims that foreign nationals swing close elections in one party’s favor.

More than a dozen cities and towns across the country allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

There has long been a policy debate in the United States about whether voting rights should be afforded at the municipal level to foreign nationals regardless of immigration status, as most of them pay comparable levels of taxes to U.S. citizens, contribute to their local economies and send their children to local schools.

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