A Tale of Two Headlines & the Farce of Trump's Non-Citizen Voting Bill

Happy Monday!

With wall-to-wall coverage focused today on former President Trump’s first criminal trial,¹ let’s briefly look back at how the media covered Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson’s announcement of new legislation cracking down on voting by people who aren’t U.S. citizens.

USA Today offered this headline:

The problem with the legislation, and with USA Today’s headline, is we don’t have a non-citizen voting problem in the U.S.

There are a few reasons for this:

• It’s already illegal for people who aren’t U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections.

• Most people who aren’t U.S. citizens don’t go around breaking the law, for fear of being imprisoned or deported.

• If you want to vote, you have fill out a voter registration form swearing you’re a citizen. Many people who aren’t U.S. citizens have a healthy skepticism of the government and government forms, and avoid them entirely. They certainly avoid committing perjury by falsely signing, “Yes, I’m a citizen” on the form.

• There’s no fame or fortune that comes with falsely registering and casting a single vote. It’s not a crime with a huge upside.

• You’re going to get caught: voting creates a paper trail from the registration form to the poll book that’s easy to uncover.
  

Luckily, outlets such as NBC News had more accurate and comprehensive headlines:

To USA Today’s credit, the fourth paragraph of their article said that non-citizen voting is illegal and rare, and they released a fact check story several days later. But a paper that reaches seven million people in a country where something like 100 million people believe the 2020 election was stolen owes its readers better.²

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Unfortunately, even the best headlines failed to call the Trump/Johnson bill what it is: voter suppression legislation. As NBC’s subheading notes, the bill would require everyone to provide a document proving their citizenship when they register to vote.

Requiring “proof of citizenship” would do more harm than good. States already verify citizenship, usually by checking each voter’s driver’s license or social security number. Requiring additional proof could disenfranchise millions who don’t have access to documents like passports or birth certificates.

So much of the “election integrity” policing that Trump’s party celebrates in the voting context they would condemn as “excessive” and “harmful” government regulation in the business context. The media plays a critical role in not blindly letting Trump perpetuate that double standard.

And in an election where we’re all going to be challenged by misinformation, AI, and conflicting narratives, this is an early reminder to read beyond the headlines and seek out the full facts before believing the first thing we see.

1. Here’s my post on why I think the trial plays an important role in the fight for democracy.

2. A very rough average of recent polls shows that around 30% of Americans believe the 2020 election was stolen.