Why don’t we verify voter citizenship?

In last week's column, I told the story of two noncitizens who had been registered to vote in Nevada.

How could that happen when noncitizens aren't eligible to vote? Because Nevada doesn't verify whether registered voters are citizens.

A lot of voters are concerned about the integrity of our elections, and they believe one way to improve safeguards is a constitutional voter-identification law, such as Indiana's. That law requires voters to display a government-issued photo identification at the polls to be able to vote. It also compels the state to provide valid identification to the indigent free of charge.

Voter-ID legislation is a hyperpartisan issue, with Republicans generally favoring such laws as a strong check against registration and election fraud, and Democrats generally opposed on the grounds that such laws can disenfranchise eligible voters.

But even if Nevada were to adopt such a law, it still wouldn't guarantee that voters were citizens.

Perhaps lawmakers can agree on strengthening the most basic requirement for voting: mandating that voters, upon registration, prove their citizenship, and empowering county registrars and the secretary of state to verify citizenship. Right now, the only safeguard is a warning to applicants that submitting a false voter registration form is a crime - a warning that might as well include, "But don't worry, we don't ever check whether you're actually a citizen."

So what, exactly, happens?

"The counties, when they register a new individual, will first verify the identity of the potential registrant," Scott F. Gilles, Nevada's deputy secretary of state for elections, explained in an email. "The first step in verifying the identity typically entails confirmation of a valid DMV issued ID and DOB [date of birth]. In order to obtain a DMV ID, an applicant must first prove identity. ...

"While Nevada's DMV does currently verify citizenship [DMV can't lawfully issue licenses or ID cards to illegal immigrants], the department does not presently maintain an immigration number within their records that could be used to make comparisons with any existing citizenship database," Gilles wrote. "Some states have explored whether the SAVE database maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services could be used to make effective comparisons with voter registration records. To our knowledge, issues as to the reliability of records within this database and the accuracy of making comparisons have not yet been resolved by any particular state."

SAVE is an acronym for the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, "a web-based service that helps federal, state and local benefit-issuing agencies, institutions, and licensing agencies determine the immigration status of benefit applicants so only those entitled to benefits receive them," according to Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"Nevada does not currently have access to the SAVE database," Gilles said. "It has not been openly shared by the federal government.

"As president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), Secretary [of State Ross] Miller endorsed and had approved a NASS resolution to encourage access to SAVE and other federal databases that contain data which could help make the states' voter registration databases more accurate. However, even if Nevada were to obtain access to the database, the Department of Motor Vehicles does not collect any type of immigration or alien registration number which would allow the secretary of state's office to utilize the database in any valuable way."

Let's assume our hypothetical noncitizen application, submitted by a third party, shows no match against DMV records. "If a county cannot make an accurate comparison using a DMV issued ID number, they next attempt to confirm identity by comparing a SSN [Social Security number] if provided," Gilles writes. Now let's assume that application also doesn't match the Social Security database.

"If any individual fails to provide adequate proof of identity at the time of registration, that voter is flagged as 'ID Required' at the polling location and must provide ID at the polling location in order to be eligible to vote."

Under state law, a health insurance card and a utility bill are adequate proof of identification. Proof of citizenship is never required at any stage of registration or voting.

"The DMV database, at present, cannot be used to verify citizenship," Kevin Malone, DMV public information officer, wrote in an email. "Strictly speaking, we do not verify citizenship. We record what type of proof of identity documents are presented for an original license or ID but there is no reliable indicator of citizenship status.

"The laws that require all new license or ID applicants to present original proof of identity documents went into effect on January 1, 2004. ... Prior to that, an out-of-state driver's license or ID card was accepted as the sole proof of identity. In these cases, we would have no record at all of what documents were originally produced as proof of identity."

For the DMV to begin collecting and storing proof-of-citizenship data, the agency "would need both direction and funding from the Legislature to accomplish this," Malone writes.

Nevada's default position on election integrity: The risk of having ineligible voters cast ballots is preferable to inconveniencing eligible voters.

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him Mondays on "Live and Local with Kevin Wall" on KXNT News Radio, 100.5 FM, 840 AM.