Speaker Johnson, Trump Announce Election Integrity Bill

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced an election integrity bill during a joint press conference with former President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday.

Revealing that he has been to 23 states within the past couple of weeks as part of his responsibilities when the House of Representatives is not in session, Johnson said that one important question on people’s minds is the issue of election integrity.

“The border’s the number one issue in America. There’s never been a political issue that scored so high in the polls as a matter of concern. And, it doesn’t matter where anyone lives, because as we say now, every state is a border state. And election integrity is tied to border, the lack of border security,” he stated.

Johnson criticized President Joe Biden for the “catastrophe” at the border, pointing to “64 specific executive actions” that the Biden administration took since Biden was sworn into office that led to the illegal immigrant crisis the country grapples with today.

Explaining how the open border poses a “threat to our election integrity,” Johnson explained, “You need to understand something really important about federal law. Since 1993, the National Voter Registration Act, we call it the motor voter law, allows people to sign up to vote when they get a drivers license.”

“If an individual only does search, or simply states that they are a citizen, they don’t have to prove it. They can register that person to vote in a federal election, and you see states are currently prohibited, believe it or not, the states are prohibited from asking someone to prove that they are a citizen,” he added.

The House speaker then went on to announce that House Republicans are proposing a piece of legislation that will make proof of citizenship a voting requirement.

“It seems like common sense, I’m sure all of us would agree. We only want U.S. citizens to vote in U.S. elections. But, there are some Democrats who don’t want to do that. We believe that one of their designs, one of the reasons for this open border, which everybody asks all around the country, ‘Why would they do this? Why would they allow all of this chaos? Why the violence?’ Because they want to turn these people into voters,” he stated.

Promising that he and Trump will do all they can to “ensure that we do have free and fair elections in this country,” Johnson added, “If we don’t have that in a Constitutional Republic, we have nothing. It’s the basis of who we are as a nation. And, we owe that to the American people. So, what we’re going to do is introduce legislation to require that every single person who registers to vote in a federal election must prove that they are an American citizen first.”

The bill would also require states to remove non–citizens already registered as voters from their existing voter rolls.

🚨Speaker Johnson unveils new bill by House Republicans to ensure illegals cannot vote in future elections:

“The Republicans stand for election integrity.” pic.twitter.com/LT1bcdGXvD

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 12, 2024

Before talking about the election integrity bill and election interference, Trump urged Biden to take action and close the border immediately. Pointing to a rise in migrant crime in the United States, the GOP presumptive nominee said, “We probably have fifteen million people, and they come from places you don’t want to know about and they’re going to be big problems, and it’s getting worse.”

“It’s migrant crime. It’s a new category of crime, migrant crime. And, I’m just demanding, I just demand, as a citizen I demand, the border has to be closed. Our country cannot take it, no country could take it. It’s not sustainable by any country,” he added.

The election integrity bill is already facing opposition from the left, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement after the press conference that the conference was “designed to further sow confusion and distrust in our elections.”

“Even the conservative CATO institute has said, noncitizens are not voting in federal elections or state elections. Donald Trump, the big lie and those who stoke it for partisan politics are the real threats to our democracy,” he stated, per CBS News.