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Rep. Jaren Crane introduces measure to require Secretary of State to verify voter citizenship using state and federal databases
Summary
Representative Jaren Crane, R‑Nampa, introduced RS 32,073 to require the Secretary of State to verify citizenship of registered voters by comparing the statewide voter rolls with ITD records, SSA verification and the federal SAVE system.
Representative Jaren Crane, R-Nampa, introduced RS 32,073 on Monday to direct the Idaho Secretary of State to verify the citizenship status of persons on the statewide voter registration list by comparing registrations with other government databases.
The measure, Crane said, parallels a constitutional amendment the legislature passed last year (HDR 5) and directs the Secretary of State to compare voter records to citizenship information maintained by the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), the Social Security Administration’s verification system and the federal SAVE database. "They like the legislation ... ITD actually has a lot of useful information that they should be using to confirm identifications," Crane said.
The bill text calls for notifying any individual if the secretary is unable to confirm their citizenship status. Crane told the committee the Secretary of State’s office had signaled support and that the office planned follow-up materials; he also said the SAVE database and SSA verification were acceptable to them.
Committee members asked procedural and technical questions. Representative Achilles asked whether Crane had worked with nonpartisan groups such as the League of Women Voters; Crane said he had not. Representative Achilles and others raised questions about which identity documents would be acceptable in automatic matches, and whether out‑of‑state documents or concealed‑carry permits would meet the bill’s criteria. Crane replied that the committee would address detail about acceptable documents in a later hearing.
Representatives Barbieri and Scott described name‑matching problems they encounter in practice — for example, voters who use a nickname or middle name, or names with mixed capitalization and punctuation — and asked whether the Secretary of State’s matching systems would misflag voters because of those issues. Crane said the Secretary of State staff were meeting the next day and he would press that office on such matching errors.
The committee voted to introduce RS 32,073 for a later hearing. The motion passed by voice vote; no roll‑call tally was recorded in the transcript.
