James Carville outraged by bill to keep non-citizens from voting

Democratic strategist James Carville expressed outrage on Thursday about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.

The bill, which requires states to obtain proof of citizenship before registering someone to vote in a federal election, passed largely along party lines with only four Democrats supporting it on Thursday. Carville, on “CUOMO,” told guest host Chris Sununu that the bill was pointless political theater.

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“It’s a massively unnecessary idea. There has been study after study, and I mean a lot of studies and good studies that say that the amount of fraud in American elections is almost undetectable,” Carville said. “We’ve looked for that forever. So you ask yourself, if an elderly person doesn’t have a driver’s license or a married person takes her husband’s name … Well, they can’t produce a thing saying, ‘I’m Jane Smith’ because the birth certificate is ‘Jane Jones.’”

Democrats have repeated claims that the bill would keep married women from voting because their surnames would no longer correspond with the names on their birth certificates. However, GOP lawmakers have noted the bill contains provisions to enable married women to register to vote in federal elections.

“Why are we putting another bureaucratic layer to solve a problem that doesn’t exist? Why don’t we solve problems that actually exist? Like say, Medicaid to the states that this budget is utterly destroying,” Carville continued. “So I just think it’s totally unnecessary. It’s totally grandstanding. It’s doing what a lot of Democrats do. ‘Look at me. I’m so moral, I’m so smart, I’m doing things that don’t affect anybody but watch me.’ And that’s what this is really about.”

Sununu noted that Republicans would argue the law is necessary due to the millions of illegal immigrants present in the United States. He asked Carville how the government could block them from voting without confirming citizenship status.

“The simple reason is if I’m undocumented, whatever word you use, I’m not going to show up and vote, alright?” Carville said, laughing. “I’m not going to expose myself. And all of the efforts, and I mean massive efforts, when President Bush, 43 was president, they had a whole study to try to see how much fraud there was in the election. It’s almost impossible to detect. I’m not saying that — you have all of these people who vote on Election Day — there’s zero fraud … The honesty of American elections are not a problem, not a problem in the least.”

The Democratic strategist acknowledged that President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, saying he does not believe there was voter fraud and repeating that he does not believe it is “a problem” in American elections.

Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds joined “CUOMO” after Carville and pushed back against the Democratic strategist’s claims.

“I think it’s necessary. Obviously, if you go back, and I’ll use James Carville’s point from Bush 41’s administration till now, there’s been a massive increase in in illegal immigration in the United States,” Donalds said. “That’s beyond a shadow of a doubt. Secondarily, you have states like Oregon, like Washington, state, like California, most states in the country, have now gone to mail-in voting as opposed to what the voting system used to be.” 

“And unless you’re from Florida or Georgia, or some other states that take vote by mail seriously and the controls around it, it’s actually quite loose to get an absentee ballot and to vote that ballot,” he continued. “So, in short, if you have to demonstrate your citizenship in order to vote in federal elections, that’s a common sense approach in a time where we have had administrations in the past allow for a massive illegal immigration and access to many systems, some welfare and potentially also voting.”

The Save Act now heads to the Senate, where the Republican majority could vote to send it to Trump’s desk.

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