Votebeat‘s Jessica Huseman quoted Trey Grayson‘s and John Merrill‘s op-ed arguing that states should take the lead on citizenship verification efforts.
She writes:
Two former Republican secretaries of state, John Merrill (Alabama) and Trey Grayson (Kentucky), recently wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg in which they say Trump’s executive order could create unintended consequences, citing Kansas’ experience with impeding eligible voters as an example.
Those interested in “getting the citizenship issue right can look to the states for promising pathways forward,” they say, such as proposed legislation that would allow election officials to more easily check voters’ citizenship status.
But if the idea is to seek a solution based on data rather than rhetoric, the horse may have left the barn.
Fortunately, the two officials wrote, noncitizen voting is historically rare. “Yet those in charge of administering elections must contend with the fact that a critical mass of the voting public harbors serious concerns about election integrity in general, and noncitizen voting in particular.”