By Faith Barbara N Ruhinda updated at 1336 EAT on Wednesday 16 April 2025

states are barreling ahead in a push to require voters to show documents proving of their citizenship when registering, as efforts by President Donald Trump and his congressional allies to enact the mandate nationwide show little likelihood of success.

Twenty-two states have considered proof-of-citizenship legislation this year, with Wyoming last month becoming the latest to enact such a policy, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election-related legislation.

That’s a dramatic increase from the six states that weighed these kinds of bills just four years ago  underscoring an intensifying campaign by some Republicans to elevate an issue that voting experts say is virtually non-existent – foreigners infiltrating the US voting rolls.

In recent years, hard-right activists have claimed, without evidence, that voting by noncitizens is fueling fraud and affecting election results

The state-by-state legislative push comes as national Republicans from Trump on down have made the proposal a top agenda item, even as those federal efforts face serious legal, legislative and logistical obstacles.

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives last week passed its own proof-of citizenship bill reprising an effort that began last year. However, the bill faces a near-impossible hurdle in the Senate, where Republicans lack the votes to overcome an expected filibuster by Democrats.

Last month, Trump who has made repeated and baseless claims that fraud contributed to his 2020 defeat sought to single-handedly change how local governments and states carry out elections with a sweeping executive order that included several provisions aimed to boost proof of citizenship requirements, amid attacks on other state policies for how elections are administered.

Several lawsuits are challenging Trump’s order, arguing that his actions amount to an unconstitutional presidential overreach into elections.

And the administration is now claiming in court filings that Trump’s directive that a federal elections commission do what it can to encourage the adoption of proof of citizenship requirements was more of a “proposal” that would need to go through many more procedural steps including gaining the support of at least one Democrat on the relevant commission  before becoming reality.

The president is clearly telecasting that this is what he wants his allies across the country to be advancing,” said Liz Avore, a senior adviser to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election-related legislation.

It’s already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and those who do risk jail time and deportation.

Currently in most states, voters confirm their citizenship by signing a sworn statement. Critics argue that requiring people provide proof, through documents such as birth certificates or passports, to register to vote could disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans who might lack ready access to those documents and could be improperly kicked off the voting rolls.

It is rare for noncitizens to vote. An audit of Iowa’s rolls of 2.1 million registered voters released last month found 277 noncitizens on the rolls and concluded that 35 had cast ballots that were ultimately counted in the 2024 general election.

Opponents say the GOP-led efforts could suppresd votting particularly for poor and older voters and create additional obstacles for women who change their names after marriage because their birth certificates or other documents establishing their citizenship might not match their current last names.

Republican supporters of the bill that recently passed the US House said states can help affected people overcome those barriers by choosing to include additional records, such as marriage certificates, to the list of documents they will accept in verifying citizenship.

The effort to pass proof-of-citizenship statutes around the country is advancing alongside a campaign by conservative activists to change state constitutions to require US citizenship to vote, although it already is illegal for noncitizens to do so in presidential and congressional contests. (Washington, DC, and some municipalities in three states – California, Maryland and Vermont – have allowed permanent, legal residents to vote on local issues.)

Eight states last year approved measure adding a citizenship requirement to their constitutions, bringing the total number of states with explicit prohibitions in their constitutions to 15, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The challenge in enacting the mandate is that most states, under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, are obligated to accept, at least for federal elections, a federal registration form that has not included citizenship documents among its requirements.

Liz Tentarelli, president of the New Hampshire League of Women Voters, said lawmakers in other places should view the Granite State’s recent experience as a “cautionary tale.”

There will be people turned away, and if that’s what a state wants, it’s a mistake,” she said. “We should not be creating laws to disenfranchise.

New Hampshire state Rep. Bob Lynn, a Republican who authored the bill that requires proof of citizenship, said voting appeared to go smoothly for most residents. “It’s too bad that you didn’t familiarize yourself in advance with what you needed to do” to cast a ballot, he said of cases like DePasquale’s. “That’s what the law is.”

The new law also prohibits the use of sworn statements, which attest to a voter’s qualifications if they show up at the polls without the required documentation.

New Hampshire lawmakers are now weighing another bill drafted by Lynn that would extend the proof-of-citizenship mandate to those who vote by mail.

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