(The Center Square) – Louisiana lawmakers voted along party lines Tuesday to advance a bill that would require the state to use a federal immigration database to check whether registered voters are U.S. citizens, with supporters calling it an election-integrity measure and opponents warning it could wrongly target eligible voters.
House Bill 691 by Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, cleared committee 9-7 after a lengthy hearing that focused on the scale of noncitizen voting in Louisiana and the reliability of the data used to detect it.
The bill would require the secretary of state to annually run voter registration records through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, before a regularly scheduled federal general election, so long as the program remains free or lawmakers appropriate money for it. Potential noncitizen matches would then be sent to the Division of Election Integrity for investigation, and if verified, forwarded to parish registrars to challenge the person’s registration.
The bill also would require annual reporting to the Legislature on how many records were checked, how many voters were challenged and how many registrations were canceled.
Secretary of State Nancy Landry said her office had identified 403 ineligible voters registered to vote in the last 40 years and said “even one ineligible voter is unacceptable.” All 403 were sent a notification giving them 21 days to prove their citizenship, but none came forward. She added that since 2020, 130 illegal votes have been cast.
“My first election was decided by 33 votes,” Landry said. “Every vote counts, and every ineligible vote cancels an eligible voter out.”
Responding to questions from Rep. Joy Walter, D-Shreveport, Landry and Beaullieu said the issue is not about illegal immigration, but about legal noncitizens who may have been offered voter registration through the Office of Motor Vehicles and either mistakenly registered or later cast ballots.
Landry said the state now provides stronger warnings at agencies including OMV and SNAP offices that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote, though opponents pressed officials on whether those notices are available only in English. Supporters also said the bill is preventative, with Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington, saying lawmakers routinely pass measures to stop problems before they worsen and that protecting the value of lawful votes is a legitimate state interest.
”I really have an issue with the idea that we’re trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist,” Wright told the committee.
Opponents, however, said the legislation risks disenfranchising eligible voters based on flawed federal data. Rep. Wilford Carter criticized the proposal as a threat to voting rights, saying lawmakers were willing to “sacrifice” the right to vote over a relatively small number of cases.
Advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, 10,000 Women Louisiana, and the Southern Poverty Law Center testified against the bill. They say recent problems with federal systems identifying noncitizens could sweep in lawful voters, expand bureaucracy and undermine confidence in the election system.
Max Martin with the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice said that a recent Cato Institute study found “found that non citizen voting isvirtually nonexistent.” Martin added that the study “concluded that false claims of fraudulent voters are an affront to our democracy and all of those who work to deliver free and fair elections. “
