>> The integrity of the American electoral process has been an ongoing debate since elections have existed.

However, conversations about it when it's a hyper drive after the 2020 election when President Donald Trump made false claims of widespread voter fraud and refused to concede he lost Republican lawmakers in Congress are now pushing for the safeguard American voter eligibility or safe act.

It would require voters to show proof of citizenship like a passport or birth certificate before registering to vote.

But critics say it will discredit disenfranchise U.S. citizens from voting.

Joining us, our Ed Young KO Communications director of ACLU of Illinois in Carol Davis, chairman of the Illinois Conservative Union.

Thank you both for joining us.

Thank Karen, I want to start with you.

There are already laws prohibiting noncitizens from voting is safe to act necessary.

>> Well, there's laws against assault.

There are laws against speeding.

There are laws against many things and we all know that people break the law so there needs to be some consequence when we break the law and we know people are breaking and have broken the law as far as registering and being noncitizens.

So yes, it's important to have that into the law.

>> And what are your thoughts?

I think this is a this is a solution in search of a problem.

The incidents of people being registered to vote are registering to vote when they're non citizens virtually nonexistent.

There's a one name to anecdotes that people can bring up and people are punished for that because is, is Carol observed.

It's against the law.

But what this does is threaten to carve out a whole group of people who don't have access to fundamental documents when they register or re-register and also threatened and, you know, unleash a whole set of voter purges right near election so that people will be driven from the voter rolls.

>> And at Illinois says been a leader in expanding voter access.

How might this measure affect us locally?

You know, joy, that's something that really does worry You know, you say Illinois has expanded early voting.

We've expanded online registration.

We've expanded, you know, automatic voter registration.

We digs and expanded early voting all in an effort to enable people to participate.

>> This would literally eliminate the ability for anybody to do any kind of online voter registration because they'd have produce the documents in order to the either a passport or birth certificate.

It would change, for example, that work that's been done all across the state by Both parties are are both political persuasions in terms of registering people to vote because those no longer could be checked under the save act that it would require registrars and and actually elections officials to do it and it would put pressure on election officials when they get the sort of last-minute purge request to deflect resources from trying to make voting safe and accessible for all of us.

And instead worrying about again, what I think is largely a conspiracy theory that they're somehow large numbers of noncitizens voting now want to bring Carolyn, what are your thoughts about assailant guarding non-citizens getting registered?

We over 500 cases just in early 2020 in Illinois made national news.

>> Through the DMV, non-citizens were going on to the voter rolls and it was only through the work of a whistleblower that that became apparent.

So it's not once in a lifetime thing we had over 500 noncitizens dumped into the voter rolls and discovered in early 2020.

And that's just the ones that were found.

So we don't buy into you know, the left always says, oh, it's such a rare occurrence study after study has shown that non-citizens are being registered and non citizens are being voted.

It was a recent congressional report from the speaker's office that actually document to the incident says several incidences of large quantities of non citizens that have been found on voter rolls all across the country and care.

I want I want to follow up with you in saying is election integrity, something that voters should be concerned about?

>> Yes, they should be because we as citizens have investment in our communities in our counties, in our nation.

So it starts at the local personal family level because we have elections every level of government.

And so the taxpayers, the citizens, they should not have their vote canceled by someone who has not been invested in America.

>> And that you touched on this a little bit.

But while this bill has been framed to protect the integrity of our elections, there are some possible barriers that affect individuals who have changed their names like many people, Mary married women are transgender people Hocutt these demographics be affected well, a number of ways.

Let me just say this study that Carol cited.

>> Has been questioned by a election officials who actually look at across the country.

I would remind you that the speaker of the House of Representatives can't say who won the election in 2020.

So I'm not sure that he's the person I'd look for do for expertise here.

But think about married per a married woman who changes her name when married doesn't have that name that matches her birth certificate is she hasn't gone through some other process.

She may be struck from the rolls.

Transgender folks often leave their dead name behind and in many situations and in many states they aren't able to update their birth certificate in the way that they're able to win.

Illinois.

Those people can be affected as well.

It's estimated that up to 20 million people across America are not as fortunate as some of us to have access to both our original birth certificate and a passport.

Those would be the kind of documents that people would mean.

And, you know, many people not only don't have access to them, but don't have the resources to going get that in order comply with this act again for what is a very limited set of circumstances and a trumped-up charge that's just being used in order to suppress votes across the country, Carol.

With that, is there a way to ensure election security without creating barriers to voting?

Well, there are no barriers.

My friend here sites, all these examples, but we're not living in the Stone Age.

>> We live in a wonderful, wonderful new age where technology is available.

>> Yes, the laws do have to make it easier and faster for people to get the documents that they need.

But it can be easily done.

I've recently been an executor for an estate and had to obtain all kinds of documents and it was quickly and easily done.

And those who don't know the system, it's a matter of going to your county clerk.

When you register, they will help you get what you need to register to vote.

We want people to vote.

We don't want exclude any legitimate voter from voting and we love the melting pot.

That is America.

It's what made has made America great.

But we cannot have legitimate citizens votes canceled and the polling is high on this where you pull citizens across the spectrum, they believe it's unfair to have someone cancel out their vote.

Who is not an American citizen.

What are your thoughts will I think a couple of things.

First of all, this idea that technology would make all of these documents available is the very same thing we heard.

>> When states after the Voting Rights Act was struck down by the Supreme Court, we're implementing voter registrar of Voter ID laws and we were told that people can get those ID's easily and then it turned out even in our neighboring state of Wisconsin that that was actually efforts to make it harder for those documents to be obtained.

You know, the other thing is, is that in order to serve this goal, what we've already seen in states like Kansas and Arizona and Virginia, Alabama, where these measures have been put in place at the state level.

United States citizens have been driven off of the polls and not been able to get back on in order to vote.

I think it's unfair to deny someone the right to vote because somebody else wants to serve a political agenda.

I want to follow by saying why do you think this measures being proposed?

I think this is part of a wide-ranging voter suppression, a campaign that we've seen over the last 20 years in this country.

I think there are people who don't like when people vote.

you know, I'm not saying that that's Carol, but I think there are politicians who don't like when people vote.

And I think these measures are on way in which to limit the pool of people who can vote in any election in Cairo.

Want to follow by saying, does this create, in your opinion, a chilling effect that could discourage even eligible voters from participating in elections?

>> Well, let me say I actually served on the front lines of elections for many years.

I've been a poll watcher, but I've also been a poll worker and the attitude, every polling place that I have ever work has been welcoming.

Let's do whatever we can to get you voting if we can.

if you don't have what you need, you in small local polling places.

You can easily run home and grab what you need.

Excuse after excuses used to just keep broadening and broadening and broadening the pool of voters without the vetting.

And the confirming that we need.

Plus, this is a disservice to people who are non-citizens who are being registered by third-party organizations.

Ngo's, non-governmental organizations, they're sweeping so many non-citizens into the voter rolls and it's doing them a tremendous disservice because there are penalties to pay.

And if these people, if English isn't their first language, they're going to be swept unknowingly sometimes into the registers and they may never be able to become a citizen.

What if that immigrant marries has a family and is settled in America and 10 years later, they discover