The North Carolina Republican primary for state Senate District 26 is currently separated by two votes.
Yes, two votes.
Phil Berger is currently trailing Sam Page, with the former having 13,075 votes and the latter having 13,077.
When elections are decided on razor thin margins like this, every single vote matters, which is why it’s important that the only votes cast and counted are votes that are legitimate and legal. It’s precisely why legislation like the SAVE America Act is so important.
Noncitizen voting is already illegal, but the current law is largely toothless. Prospective voters simply check a small box on the federal registration form attesting under penalty of perjury that they are a United States citizen. In other words, it’s the honor system.
Now it’s not to say that any noncitizens illegally cast a ballot in this race, to be clear. But it is to say that when the margin is two votes, simply trusting voters were truthful on their registration form is not a sufficient safeguard.
The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act to require documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote as well as voter ID to cast a vote. The legislation has already passed the House and is now stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate despite a majority of Americans supporting such commonsense measures.
The legislation would ensure that only American citizens are casting votes and that American elections are decided by Americans.
Opponents of the legislation have argued, however, that the legislation is unnecessary because noncitizen voting is “rare.”
California Democrat Sen. Alex Padila said noncitizen voting is “already a felony and it is extremely, extremely rare. This bill does nothing to secure our elections while seeking to disenfranchise millions of eligible American citizens.”
California Rep. Scott Peters said the legislation would “solve a ‘problem’ that is virtually nonexistent, while preventing millions of Americans from being able to use their voice and vote in our elections.”
Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said voter fraud is “extraordinarily rare” and that when it does occur it’s overwhelmingly “committed by U.S. citizens.”
The reasoning is that it’s rare, so it doesn’t matter. But “rare” doesn’t mean nonexistent. Just recently, Melanie Pickett, a Bahamian native, admitted that despite not being a U.S. citizen she has voted multiple times in American elections. If an election is separated by two votes — or even one vote — then illegal votes are not insignificant — in fact, they could be decisive.
And even if authorities catch a noncitizen voting in an election, it won’t change the outcome, because once a ballot is cast, it’s counted. There is no removing the vote from the total tally. And in a race decided by two votes, a handful of ineligible votes can override and — to borrow a term from Democrats — “disenfranchise” American citizens’ votes.
Nonetheless, the propaganda press has largely used the same line of reasoning to try and help their Democrat allies dismiss the importance of the SAVE America Act.
“Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens already is illegal in federal elections and there is no indication it’s happening anywhere in significant numbers,” The Associated Press’ Ali Swenson wrote.
“Noncitizen voting is rare,” Politico’s Dana Nickel wrote. “Why is Washington so focused on it?”
NPR’s Miles Parks previously wrote: “Despite grand claims, a new report shows noncitizen voting hasn’t materialized.”
But close elections don’t make election security less important. If anything, they make it more important.
If two votes can decide an election, then the SAVE America Act isn’t unnecessary.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
