Secretaries of State From Arizona, Georgia Trade Barbs on Noncitizen Voting, Voter ID

It stands to reason that, if we are to have reliable, secure elections, we must go to every effort to make sure only legal votes are cast and recorded. On Sunday, Secretaries of State Brad Raffensperger (R-GA) and Adrian Fontes (D-AZ) had a spirited discussion, on NBC's "Meet the Press" with host Kristen Welker, about attempted voting by noncitizens:

Welker asked Raffensperger why the issue of noncitizens voting in the election is such an urgent matter if its quite rare and illegal.
“Because I believe only American citizens should be voting in our elections. And I ran back in 2018 saying the same thing. I’m the first secretary of state in Georgia to ever do 100 percent citizenship verification,” Raffensperger responded.
He said the state found about 1,600 people that attempted to register to vote but they could not find citizenship verification.
“So, my fellow Georgians asked me, ‘Are noncitizens voting in Georgia?’ I can say, ‘No, they aren’t’ because we’ve checked it,” Raffensperger said.

Amazingly, Secretary Fontes used the fact that verification was done as an argument to not verify:

Fontes addressed Raffensperger saying he proved his own point with that example.
“You did an audit, and you found that there were attempts. But none of those folks were actually registered, and none of those folks actually voted. And that means that elections have been safe and secure from noncitizen voting in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and across the country,” Fontes said. “So, I think this is a red herring.”

There's more to this than just noncitizen voting. This is one part of the problem the nation has with election integrity. Another one of the primary things that must be done to ensure election integrity is to make sure only eligible citizens vote. Too many Americans are losing faith in the election process. That's not without reason.

AG Merrick Garland Campaigns for Unsecure Elections, Slams 'Unnecessary' Voter ID

Secretary Raffensperger went on to say, in reply to Fontes:

But it's not, because you look at, already, there's the left-wing groups trying to get noncitizens voting in local elections in Washington, DC, New York City, and in other places. And so, if people really, truly believe this, then why are we getting sued by the left to stop us from doing citizenship verification?

It's also exclusively the left that is fighting against requiring an ID to vote. That's somewhat baffling, as in this "Meet the Press" discussion, all parties appear to agree with the need for election security, including the Georgia Republican and the Arizona Democrat; their discussion had to do with noncitizens attempting to vote, but the same arguments could easily apply to people voting under another's name, or voting under the name of a deceased relative, or even engaging in questionable ballot harvesting.

Here in the Valley, when we vote, we go to our Community Center, show our ID, sign the log, and fill out a paper ballot that is counted by people. Granted, in a jurisdiction where there are only a few thousand votes to count, hand-counting and verifying is a lot more doable than in a major city with millions of votes cast. But there can be no good argument against having every citizen verify their identity and being checked off against a log of registered voters before receiving a ballot. It's a primary aspect of maintaining secure elections, without which we no longer have a representative, constitutional republic.

Whether the issue is noncitizens attempting to vote or any other electoral shenanigans, there's just no good reason for voters to not be required to establish their identity and eligibility. Any other position should be viewed with the greatest suspicion.