Welcome to the Cato podcast. My name is Walter Olson. I'm a senior fellow at the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at Cato, and I'm joined by Stephen Richer, a legal fellow at the Cato Institute.

We are here today to talk about some of the most controversial election issues. In particular, non-citizen Duran, and both of us

have written a lot about that, and the controversy about that has been going on for a long time.

It ties in with legislation because the Save Act or Safe America Act and other bills promoted by

President Trump are described as helping

remedy a widespread problem of non-citizen voting. It turns up in court cases. It turns up a lot

as an issue for state election administrators, of which Stephen Richer almost counts, having administered

Maricopa County, which is bigger than most states, I think.

And so, Stephen, why don't we turn it over to you?

Why is this back on the news now, would you say?

That's right.

And it certainly plays a part in a number of hot topic election items right now, exactly as you said.

I don't know that non-citizens voting has ever

completely fallen out of the news over the last 20 years, but it's especially salient right now

because it is a common refrain from President Trump and from close allies of President Trump

that large numbers

of non-citizens, especially illegal immigrants, are participating in U.S. elections. And exactly,

as you said, it is the stated justification for the Save Act, for the Save America Act, for the Make Elections Great Again

Act, and it's also the stated justification for some of the unilateral actions that the president

is contemplating taking, whether through the Justice Department or through executive order.

And for instance, it factors into the fact that the Department of Justice has been requesting

the entire voter databases from most states in the United States.

...