By Ben Solis, Michigan Advance
A leader in the Michigan House Republican caucus is pushing new legislation that would require voters to prove they are United States citizens when they register to vote, and that bill had its first hearing on Tuesday before the chamber’s Election Integrity Committee.
The legislation, House Bill 4765, sponsored by state Rep. Jason Woolford (R-Howell), hits upon a major Republican agenda item in 2026 and beyond — ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in state and federal elections — which is already a legal requirement. Regardless, the bill will likely move through the House quickly with the committee’s chair, state Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Martin), appearing poised to move the bill soon at a future meeting.
Woolford’s bill does face an uphill battle with the Legislature’s Democrats, however, and even if it is fast-tracked in the lower chamber, the Democratic-led state Senate would surely kill the bill.
Much of the push behind citizen-only voting followed years of conspiratorial pandering from Republicans at the local, state and federal level and the propagation of the disproven belief that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of former President Joe Biden when he defeated President Donald Trump, who was then seeking reelection.
Trump’s racist ‘Truth Social’ post also included whopper on debunked Michigan election fraud theory
Many of those conspiracies persist and were exacerbated after a Chinese citizen voted in the 2024 election, which reignited concerns for election security and new calls to have the federal government police Michigan’s elections because Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the state’s chief election official, is also a candidate for governor.
Benson has acknowledged that there have been instances where non-citizens have voted, including the situation involving the Chinese national, who has since fled the U.S.; she also has said those instances are exceedingly rare and don’t occur at mass scale, as Republicans have argued.
Still, Woolford said Tuesday that the measure was of the utmost importance to those Michiganders who view the protection of the state’s elections system as the paramount issue facing the Great Lakes state this year.
“Why would anybody choose to wait in line, follow the rules and earn citizenship the right way, if they can bypass our system?” Woolford said. “American citizenship is unique. It is precious, it’s earned, and it must be protected. … In Michigan, your vote as an American citizen is sacred.”
Smit, a former clerk, echoed Woolford’s call to shore up election laws to ensure against future instances of non-citizen voting, despite its rarity.
The committee’s Democrats were opposed to the measure, and engaged in a tense back and forth with Woolford on the bill’s perceived potential roadblocks to voting access for some Michigan residents
State Rep. Mai Xiong (D-Warren) worried about the hurdles a requirement for photo identification and proof-of-citizenry documentation might cause, particularly for older residents. While Xiong did not reference it directly, others have posited that women who have legally changed their name in marriage or those who have changed their identities for personal reasons might be disenfranchised because they might not have easy access to those documents.
Woolford’s bill mimics the current citizen-only ballot measure that is gathering signatures necessary to appear before voters this November. His legislation would require a would-be registered voter to provide a photocopy or an in-person copy of the following documents to prove citizenship:
• A driver license or personal identification card issued by the Michigan Department of State or the equivalent from another state, as long as the Department of State or other state’s department indicates on the license or card that the individual has provided satisfactory evidence of citizenship;
• A birth certificate that verifies citizenship, which could be accompanied by a marriage license or other documentation that shows a name change;
• A passport identifying the applicant and their passport number;
• Naturalization documents or the number of their certificate of naturalization;
• The applicant’s certificate of citizenship;
• The applicant’s American Indian card issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with the classification “KIC”;
• A Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, Indian census number, tribal treaty card number, or tribal enrollment number; or
• The applicant’s certification of report of birth or consular report of birth abroad.
Xiong said those requirements would create more chaos than order in state-run elections. She referenced the larger senior citizen population in her district, and how those voters used mail-in ballots for decades. She believed the bill would specifically make it harder for that population to vote.
“Especially when we are concerned with voter turnout,” Xiong said. “We heard testimony last week about the lack of engagement when it comes to our elections, and this would have the opposite effect.”
When Xiong asked Woolford to clear up some of the logistical questions she had — particularly how that population should best navigate the proposed process — Woolford responded by asking Xiong if any of her constituents drink alcohol, or use membership-only grocery stores like Costco.
“If they buy alcohol, if they get on a plane, if they go into Costco, they need to show a picture ID,” he said. “So they should be able to do the same when they’re voting and putting people like people in this room, in seats of the House of Representatives, the state senators, and those there’s nothing more important to that.”
Michigan election law already requires voters to show a photo driver’s license or a photo state identification card at their election precinct, or in the absence of one, sign a legal affidavit. The same is true for obtaining an absentee ballot.
State Reps. Matt Koleszar (D-Plymouth) and Stephen Wooden (D-Grand Rapids) both raised concerns over similar measures enacted in other states, like Kansas and Arizona, which didn’t work as intended and might have cast aside scores of legal votes in the name of preventing illegal votes.
Woolford immediately dismissed those concerns because he said he didn’t agree with the premise.
Then there’s the issue of which ID would be best for registration and in-person voting, which Wooden addressed in another tit for tat with Woolford.
Some who have argued on behalf of citizen-only voting laws have pointed to the fact that the federal government now requires a special REAL ID to be presented when boarding a plane for domestic travel. By having that form of ID, some have argued that residents can use that ID as proof that they are a citizen because they had to provide proof-of-citizenship documentation in order to receive it.
That’s mostly correct — although those documents are required to receive a REAL ID, the card does not contain any of the birth certificate or passport information necessary to prove citizenship under Woolford’s bill. An Enhanced ID, however, does contain that information, and allows for travel across the U.S. border to Mexico, Canada or some Caribbean countries.
The cost of an Enhanced ID versus a REAL ID can vary, but is sometimes $30 extra for the more dynamic version of the state’s ID cards.
“This is not a simple voter ID law. In fact, if you look at the legislation that you have provided, you are citing one documented proof of citizenship being the applicant’s driver’s license, provided that driver’s license also verifies citizenship,” Wooden said. “The fact of the matter is, though, only roughly 2.2 million Michigan residents have that form of driver’s license compared to the 8.3 million driver’s license holders and throughout the state that do not have that kind of driver’s license. Most have a Real ID now, or many are getting a Real ID. That doesn’t cut it. What you need is an enhanced REAL ID.”
Wooden also estimated the cost of new fees for residents to get a compliant Enhanced ID would be close to $150 million — again citing cost as a potential burden on voting access.
Woolford didn’t respond directly to Wooden’s concerns, saying that the REAL ID issue was a federal one, so he could not “help on that.” The bill sponsor pivoted to asking Wooden what he was “afraid of” by not having only citizens vote. Wooden said he was more worried about what the data shows for other states who have tried the same thing.
“In Arizona, despite 43,000 Arizonans, legal citizens, being deprived of their right to vote, two instances of non-citizens still fell through the cracks under this current law,” Wooden said. “So my concern is yet again, what are the onerous burdens and costs that we are going to levy on citizens to take care of an issue that still is not rectified by your problem and we have other existing laws on the books that are working.”
In a separate news conference held on Tuesday afternoon, House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) was asked about the discrepancy over REAL ID and Enhanced ID as being compliant with Woolford’s proposed changes to election law.
Hall said he was confident the committee would work it out.
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