Texas Republican proposes "You Must Be Alive to Vote Act"

Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) proposed a bill last week that would require states to verify with the Social Security Administration that a registered voter is alive.

The bill has been dubbed the "You Must Be Alive to Vote Act" (HR8830) by Rep. Babin.

The congressman issued a statement advocating for his proposal, saying "The right to vote is one of the most vital pillars of our democracy, the foundations of which are election integrity and confidence in our democratic processes."

"The ease with which someone is able to steal the ballot of a deceased person and cast an illegitimate vote should disturb, alarm, and outrage every American citizen, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on. To protect our democratic process and Americans’ faith in our elections, we must ensure that deceased individuals are not allowed to remain on state voter rolls," the statement continued.

Babin told OAN that the proposed bill is "sad to say, but a necessary item that we must introduce in light of the fact that we still have a lot of problems with a lot of perception out there by half of America that we don't have a open and transparent election process."

"You would think that it would be unnecessary to have a bill like this. It goes with out saying that you should be alive before you get to vote," he continued.

Babin's proposal would ask local election officials to crosscheck their registration list with the Social Security Administration's lists so they can root out diseased individuals from the eligible voting body.  

"My bill would penalize these states and these counties from getting any kind of federal money from the Department of Transportation or the Department of Education if they do not do so [update registration lists] on an annual basis," Babin further explained.

"This should be a bipartisan effort to make this election process a lot more transparent."

The proposal started out with eight co-sponsors and Babin says he hopes to pick up several more.