Michigan Republican surfaces inaccurate claim about noncitizen voters in Senate race

Michigan Republican Mike Rogers claimed on the campaign trail that his Democratic opponent for U.S. Senate voted to allow noncitizens to vote.

Rogers said Rep. Elissa Slotkin "just voted recently to let illegals vote in U.S. elections." The claim was made at a rally outside Big Rapids, Michigan, on Aug. 27, alongside Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Rogers and Slotkin are running for an open Senate seat in Michigan to replace outgoing Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat. Rogers served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2015.

Rogers is wrong; Slotkin never voted to allow immigrants in the country illegally to vote in U.S. elections. But his claim is in line with similar statements that we’ve heard from other Republican candidates as the party seeks to take control of the Senate in the November election.

Rogers’ campaign told us he was referring to Slotkin’s vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which passed the House by a 221-198 vote July 10, mostly along party lines. Slotkin, along with all but five Democrats, voted against it. It’s unlikely to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The bill would require people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and Republicans said it was a measure to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots.

But federal law already prohibits anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen, including immigrants in the country illegally, to vote in federal elections. Cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare. 

"Non-citizens are legally prohibited from voting in Michigan, and Mike knows it," Slotkin spokesperson Austin Cook said, calling Rogers’ claim "disinformation about the integrity of our elections."

Michigan law requires people who register to vote to be a U.S. citizen, and voters must state, multiple times in the voting process and under penalty of perjury, that they are eligible to vote. According to the Michigan secretary of state, there are multiple checks in place to identify mistaken voter registrations. 

States and local governments have safeguards to prevent noncitizens from registering and voting in elections, Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the Voting Rights Program at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, said in a July press conference. 

"The reality is that states have multiple systems in place to deter noncitizen voting," Morales-Doyle said. "It is already a crime many times over for noncitizens to vote in state and federal elections."

Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told PolitiFact that voting against the SAVE Act is "certainly not an affirmative vote in favor of allowing non-citizens to vote" and it "keeps up the current policy that generally outlaws voting by non-citizens in federal elections."

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Elissa Slotkin

stated on August 9, 2024 in Meta ad

Mike Rogers “left Michigan to trade on his D.C. connections, helping Chinese tech companies get access to the U.S.”

Democrats criticized the bill for hindering legal citizens who want to register to vote. The bill would require a person to provide documents proving their citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote. According to a Brennan Center study, about 9% of eligible voters lack documents to prove their citizenship.

Another Republican Senate candidate, Arizona Republican Kari Lake, similarly pointed to a vote on the measure by her Democratic opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego, to claim he voted to allow noncitizens to vote. We rated that False.

A few cities, including Washington, D.C., allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Those cities have measures in place to ensure noncitizen voters cannot receive ballots for state and federal elections, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

Slotkin supported Republican-led bills in 2023 and 2024 to prohibit noncitizens from voting in local Washington, D.C., elections. 

Cases of noncitizens being registered to vote, or casting a ballot in elections, are vanishingly rare, and there are penalties for immigrants in the country illegally who try to register to vote.

A small number of noncitizens do register and vote in each election cycle, Burden said in an email. Those registrations are often the result of administrative misunderstanding by the individual or an election official. 

"Outright fraud by non-citizens is rare because it is relatively easy to detect, and the penalties are serious," Burden said. "A non-citizen who registers to vote is actually creating a paper record of their illegal behavior. If found guilty, a person can be fined, imprisoned, and/or deported."

A 2017 Brennan Center study surveyed 42 local jurisdictions in 12 states and found 30 instances of noncitizens casting a ballot in the 2016 election. Those votes accounted for 0.0001% of the more than 23.5 million votes in the jurisdictions they surveyed.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, maintains a list of identified voter fraud actions. It lists fewer than 90 cases of noncitizens trying to register to vote, or voting, in federal elections between 2002 and 2023. 

An investigation in Georgia found 1,634 cases of possible noncitizens trying to register to vote from 1997 to 2023. Because of state checks in place, none of them succeeded. 

Rogers said Slotkin "voted recently to let illegals vote in U.S. elections."

Slotkin voted against a bill that would require people to provide documents proving their citizenship when they register to vote. It’s already illegal for noncitizens to register and vote under state and federal laws, and a "no" vote on the bill doesn’t change that. Slotkin voted in favor of two failed Republican-led efforts to eliminate noncitizen voting in local Washington, D.C., elections.  

We rate Rogers’ claim False.