The fear of noncitizen voting is as baseless as it has been for 200 years

By Jessica Huseman, Votebeat

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

After President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson last week advocated for a bill banning noncitizen voting, the news coverage made clear that it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote and, crucially, that it isn’t a real problem.

Trump is still very eager to relitigate 2020, and Johnson’s trip to Florida to promote the scheme was widely received as the kind of reciprocal gesture we’ve seen before. The speaker, who’s struggling to maintain conservative support for his leadership job, got a photo with Trump, and Trump gets to use Johnson’s credibility to bolster the same debunked arguments he’s been making since his loss. USA Today reported that a person close to the planning said it was intended as an encouragement for other Republican officials to “get on the team” on the issue of noncitizen voting.