Democrat Hallie Shoffner, running for Senate in Arkansas against incumbent Republican Tom Cotton, argued that requiring "proof of citizenship" to vote "disenfranchises 22 million Americans." She said the SAVE Act, the proposed federal legislation that calls for that requirement, would impact "low-income Americans" because they struggle to access "records."
The remarks came during a February candidate forum hosted by Arkansas Progressive Democrats, an "auxillary [sic] caucus for the Democratic Party of Arkansas … dedicated to building a broader, more diverse, and engaged base in Arkansas politics." The group asked Shoffner whether she supports the SAVE Act and what she would do "to expand access to the ballot rather than restrict it."
"Lord, help me, this one makes me mad," Shoffner said. "So, the SAVE Act would require proof of citizenship, which is a birth certificate or a passport. … Now, what this does is it disenfranchises 22 million Americans."
"This impacts low-income Americans who may not have access to records easily," she continued before asserting that "only 13 percent of Americans even have a passport." In fact, roughly 48 to 53 percent of Americans have a passport, according to State Department data.
Shoffner also panned the SAVE Act in an October 13 debate against Cotton. She said in regard to election integrity that the government should not "stick its nose into our business and try to fix something that isn't broken."
While Arkansas has a voter ID law and other election safeguards on the books, other states have far more relaxed standards. The Justice Department on Monday charged 28 individuals—including 11 foreign nationals—in California for election crimes, "including that they fraudulently registered to vote in U.S. elections, electoral contests in which most of them cast illegal and fraudulently obtained ballots."
Shoffner told the Washington Free Beacon that "Arkansans care about secure elections. Secretary of State Cole Jester has called Arkansas's elections the safest in the country. The Constitution gives states the power to run their own elections, and the federal government has no business sticking its nose into Arkansas elections."
Shoffner's opposition to the SAVE Act is consistent with her record of left-wing positions.
From 2011-2012, she served as executive director of Seis Puentes, an Arkansas nonprofit for undocumented Hispanics meant to "engage them in the process" of navigating U.S. government systems.
Years later, during the summer of 2020, as the country was embroiled in violent protests following the death of George Floyd, Shoffner fundraised for a "racial and social justice" bail fund. The founder of that fund was later convicted for her role in firebombing police vehicles in Little Rock.
In February 2025, Shoffner argued before Arkansas's House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee in favor of race-based hiring policies. More recently, she has said she would vote to defund ICE, saying that ICE "is not making us safer."
Shoffner, who campaigns as a working-class farmer but is worth over $3 million, also faced criticism for saying that "every farmer" employs illegal aliens and that she would "trade five Americans for just one of them because of how hard they work." Though Shoffner later said she was speaking generally and did not employ illegal aliens on her family farm, a former senior employee of Shoffner's told the Free Beacon she employed at least three.
Shoffner has built her campaign around her status as a "lifelong farmer." Though she grew up on her family's farm, she spent years as a left-wing activist, including in Peru, where she worked for a Soros-funded social justice network around 2010. It was not until 2016 that Shoffner returned to the farm. Around that time, she hired a marketing firm to build a "brand" as "FarmHerHallie," the Free Beacon reported.
