(Boise, ID) Idaho House lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill to block voter registration processing for people whose citizenship status isn’t confirmed.
House Bill 94, brought by Idaho House Majority Caucus Chair Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, says the Idaho Secretary of State would verify citizenship statuses of everyone on Idaho’s statewide voter registration list by referencing their voter registration info with citizenship data from other datasets, including by the Idaho Transportation Department, the Social Security Administration’s “Help America Vote Information System,” and other, unnamed datasets containing citizenship status.
In November, Idaho voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment — proposed by the Idaho Legislature — to explicitly ban noncitizens from voting in elections.
“This here parallels what we did, but it actually is a process for the Secretary of State,” Crane told lawmakers on Thursday.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane told the Sun in a phone interview Thursday morning he hadn’t had a chance to thoroughly review the bill. But he said he was planning to bring a bill focused on voter roll maintenance that he believes is more broad and includes the Secretary of State’s Office’s noncitizen voter review efforts last year
“I think there’s more tools that we use than may be covered in the bill, so we’ll be talking with him to figure out … what we move forward,” McGrane told the Sun. “And, you know, my sense is the bill that we’ve been working on will probably be the best solution for the state.
The Idaho House State Affairs Committee on Thursday introduced Crane’s bill on a unanimous voice vote.
Introducing the bill tees it up for a full committee hearing, including public testimony and a possible vote to advance it to the Idaho House floor.
To become law, bills must be approved by the Idaho House and Senate, and avoid the governor’s veto. If passed into law, the bill would take effect July 1.
Bill would direct removing registered voters whose citizenship is unconfirmed
“Any registrant in the statewide voter registration list whose status as a United States citizen cannot be confirmed from a comparison with” one or more databases “shall be removed from the list of eligible voters,” the bill says.
“The individual voter shall be notified in writing of the inability of the secretary of state to confirm the individual’s citizenship status and shall be provided the opportunity to present evidence or documentary proof of citizenship to be restored to the eligible voter list,” the bill says.
“… Before any voter registration application is accepted and added to a county or statewide voter registration list, the applicant’s citizenship status must be confirmed” through one or more databases referenced in the bill.
Before Idaho voters approved the noncitizen voting constitutional amendment in 2024, some Democratic lawmakers worried the amendment’s language could be interpreted to block noncitizens, even people in Idaho under legal immigration methods, from voting in private elections, like for parent-teacher associations.
Crane’s new bill appears to address public elections specifically.
“It is unlawful for any individual who is not a citizen of the United States to vote in any and all public elections on any and all matters,” the new bill states. “This includes but is not limited to any primary election, general election, election for federal office, election for state office, election for local office, and any public election that includes voting on constitutional amendments, ballot initiatives, or referenda.”
If passed into law, “willful violation” of the bill’s provision on noncitizens not voting would be a crime of attempting to vote when not qualified, the bill says. That references a crime already outlined in Idaho election law.
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.
