Now I’ve heard everything! Letiecq c/o bvbl.net accuses Delegate Marshall of being a supporter of ‘amnesty for illegal aliens’. There’s an old adage about cutting your nose off to spite your face, apparently that’s what has happened here. Marshall introduced a bill that would address the issue of non-citizens being able to vote in elections but it has been labeled ‘amnesty’ by Letiecq and a few other Republicans. So, now, the bill which would have addressed the possibility of non-citizens voting won’t see the light of day for another two years.
Here’s Marshall response to Greg’s attack:
If my bill, HB 2509, really were of benefit to illegal’s registering to vote, please explain why the Democrats you regularly take to task for being soft on illegal aliens, uniformly opposed my bill coming out of Committee.
Right now, under current Virginia law, THERE IS NO PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP REQUIRED AS A CONDITION OF REGISTERING TO VOTE. You just sign a statement that you are a citizen, no proof required! With the defeat of my HB 2509, the law cannot be changed until possibly January 1, 2011, adding even more time without requiring proof of citizenship to vote!
Your explanation about my bill, HB 2509, is incorrect and completely inconsistent with my entire public voting record. Why in the world would I do anything to make it possible for illegal’s to vote in Virginia? You published this false claim without asking me for my explanation, and instead you listened to individuals whom you did not want to identify. I think I am entitled to know who my false accusers are.
Two Republicans (Del. Bill Janis and Del. Tim Hugo) spoke for the first time today on the floor of the House of Delegates, against final passage of my bill, characterizing it as “amnesty for illegal’s.” Bill Janis is an attorney and a member of the House Privileges and Elections Committee which heard this bill and neither he nor anyone else ever raised an illegal amnesty concern. When my bill passed in Committee, some of the Democrats, and all of those whom you would consider “soft” on illegal’s, voted against my bill. All the Republicans voted for it.
The language which Delegates Janis and Hugo objected to was the enactment date of January 1, 2010. The only reason that date was in my bill was because the Voter Registrars of numerous localities, indicated they needed adequate time to adjust their forms and procedures to accommodate the new proof of citizenship and other requirements that would be enacted under my bill and I did not want there to be an excuse to defeat the bill on the grounds that it did not allow time for transition.
But I also trusted that the concerns of Delegates Janis and Hugo regarding the enactment date were genuine, so I agreed both in the Republican Caucus and on the floor of the House of Delegates, to allow a Senate amendment, if possible, because my bill was on third reading and could not be amended in the House.
Bill Janis mischaracterized my private conversation with him. I did not agree that the bill allowed for amnesty. I simply reminded him that several years ago we had to grandfather those who had previously applied for a drivers’ licenses and exempted them from having to provide birth certificates and other documents for a new license. This bill was not considered “amnesty” for illegal’s because it actually strengthened driver’s license requirements for the future. You have to start at some point. IT is NOT Practical to expect all 5 million registered voters to start over again.
After I explained my bill, Tim Hugo and Bill Janis continued to describe my bill as “amnesty,” and debate was quickly cut off and the vote taken. The misinformation caused a stampede of no votes from Republicans, resulting in the defeat of the only measure in the House that had been reported to the House floor that could have established proof of citizenship for voter registration. Current Virginia law has no, I repeat no, proof of citizenship to register to vote!
My bill would have also required the posting in the two most prevalent languages of the locality, on the walls of all 2500+ polling places across the Commonwealth, the parts of the Virginia Constitution which clearly spell out that citizenship is required for voting, and that a violation results in criminal penalties including jail time and a $2500 fine.
To reiterate: My bill required proof of Citizenship as a condition to register to vote by submission of a birth certificate, passport, naturalization papers and other federal documents indicating US citizenship.It also required a government picture ID as a condition of voting, a requirement which is much stronger than present law. It required absentee voters to submit a government ID with a picture to accompany an application for absentee voting. Unfortunately, your readers were not informed of any of this!
I had also sent you my amendment which was successfully added to the House Budget bill indicating that beginning July 1, 2009, Virginia would be required to use E-Verify for all regular prospective employees of the Commonwealth. I had hoped that you would publicize this, but so far I have not seen this posted.
I hope you will let your blog commentators know who gave you the misleading information about my bill because HB 2509 was the ONLY bill from the House of Delegates in this session which could have prevented ILLEGAL aliens from registering to vote. Sadly, for the citizens of Virginia, and the integrity of our voting process, the only bill which placed any roadblock in the way of illegal’s registering to vote is dead because of the actions of certain Delegates and the misinformation that was spread.
Sincerely,
Delegate Bob Marshall
PS You also posted an amendment which I never offered and could only have been obtained by another delegate and passed on to you, because staff has no access to the floor of the House of Delegates where such amendments are kept at the Desk. Who is the secret delegate giving you bad information?
The amendment, which I did not offer but had ready just in case, delayed the effective date of my bill another six months beyond the current fiscal year, because the Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles had sent me a letter claiming my bill had an economic impact of $1.1 million which would have sent the bill back to the Appropriations Committee, clearly an attempt to kill my bill. My bill could not have been killed for lack of money in the current budget if the enactment date was beyond the current fiscal year. After determining that the Director of the DMV had not delivered his letter in his official capacity, there was no need for me to offer this amendment and I withdrew it.
Again, you know me, you know my record. Please check with me if you receive any other rumors about my record.
For the full wording of my bill and its history go to http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?091+sum+HB2509
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! These guys are funny!
So basically, every person in Virginia is going to have to re-register to vote, in person, with a certified copy of their birth certificate? What a pain in the butt that’s going to be.
Off topic, but an interesting link from the ‘other’ site:
http://www.mexica-movement.org/LibetyWall.htm
Looks like Fernandez is going main stream radical! No longer that poor innocent immigrant whose civil rights are supposedly being bruised.
With respect to this story…way to stay above it all. If you’re so sure you’re opinions are so correct, why the need to jump on Greg when he goofs one up? Or is there a personal animosity element to what goes on here? To SA, Folks like you and I always knew where this guy’s heart was. Mr. Fernandez is in luck, though, he’s got a kindred spirit in the White House!
Too bad – that website SA posted is a banned website here at work. Will have to look at it when I get home tonight. As far as the story above – I don’t think everything on this website is 100% fact either – so there’s not much room to talk.
Slow, I think on this one, you just have to ask yourself, What would Greg do?
For a couple years now we have all watched the aforementioned twist and spin things to his perceived poliltical advantage, regardless of who he defamed or tromped on. Awwwww. Let’s see how Senator Colgan, Chief Deane, Supervisors Principi and Nohe, the IT guy for the county, the lady who sent email out to her employees–the list goes on– feel about having their words and deeds twisted almost beyond recognition. Those folks are who I would worry about.
SA, I don’t recall Mr. F being billed here as a poor innocent misunderstood immigrant who had lost his rights.
While I understand the need to prove citizenship to vote, I think such a requirement will deter citizens to register. It’s hard enough to get people to the polls. If you start requiring further documentation, fewer people will bother. Furthermore, there is the problem of seniors and long-term legal immigrants who are hard pressed to find ANY documentation. Losing these voters would be a national tragedy.
Once again, without federal reform, our local efforts are thwarted.
That said, I would never encourage anyone to use a blog as a primary source of information simply because blogs are filled with opinion, anonymous postings and in the case of BVBL, incorrect information.
Delegate Marshall should just write them off and move on to a logical audience.
I see nothing wrong having to prove citizenship to be able to vote. It is one of the few rights citizens have over non-citizens. I think it should have to be done once, that’s it. And I think many people would be grandfathered in, those of us who already vote. People are more than willing to prove legal presence in order to drive. Very often, the same documentation is used for both.
While I rarely fall in line with Delegate Marshall, I do on this one. (and on the senior citizen daycare center.)
SA, I expect Mr. F likes the attention and the recognition he gets. I plan to ignore him and let the city handle it. He has no goals and objectives.
Obviously, Mexica movement does not understand the significance (or insignificance) of the wall/wedge/insult. They sound rather silly going on and on about Liberty Wall. Obviously no one bothered to tell them it is on LIBERTY STREET.
I don’t think anyone has established that there is a sufficient existing problem with illegal immigrants or non-citizen LEGAL residents attempting to vote that would warrant making things difficult for the rest of us. I am also worried about very old people having trouble finding any such documentation and with the relatively low voter turnout in the US, I am not interested in discouraging more people when there is no indication this is a pressing problem.
I am not worried about the “long-term immigrants” Posted as Pinko mentions because they don’t have the right to vote unless they are citizens, and if they were naturalized then they are very likely to have documentation handy from that process.
I’m with Moon-howler. I agree with Del. Marshall on this bill, and the senior daycare center.
Del. Marshall was about the only person who’d not been thrown under the “bvbl bus”. That no longer appears to be true. I’m shocked. Good for Delegate Marshall for setting the record straight.
What American wouldn’t be willing to show proof of citizenship to vote? I wouldn’t like taking the time to do so. However, I would gladly provided proof for my right to vote.
Sorry! Posting not Posted.
I would recommend reading NovaScout over on the dark board on his suspicions this is a non-problem. Nova, I know you are doing God’s work over there, but you could visit!
Leila, I was thinking of citizen immigrants who have been here for a long time. If they had to come up with those documents, it would be a real pain, I would think…because don’t they have to get them from the Feds?
PaP, I am pretty sure if you go through the naturalization process you get official as well as commemorative documents handed to you. There is no way to become an actual citizen without going through that process, no matter how many decades you have been here legally. I would guess people bothering to become citizens tend to hold on to their documents, but in any case I think this law is a bad idea.
Getting naturalization papers is not the same thing as getting a green card or other legal permission to be here. Citizenship is a whole other animal.
The reality is there is NO documentation, by all those on the republican side, primarily, that demonstrates there is a real concern with voter fraud. Even with the trumped up ACORN fiasco, no one had to worry that “mickey mouse” was actually going to vote. In case you haven’t noticed lately, only HALF of registered voters actually vote. We have a pathetic voter turn out as it is, to suggest that now I have to dig through my files to prove I am a citizen is a MAJOR obstacle. I was born in D.C., I can tell you, getting a copy of my birth certificate is NO easy feat, not by a long shot. Do I want people ineligible to vote voting? No, but as far as I can tell, that is NOT an issue.
PS: If I had to prove my citizenship, I would use my passport because frankly I have no idea if or where I have a copy of my birth certificate and getting it from another state would be a real hassle.
I don’t have a passport 🙂 Where is my birth certificate? Couldn’t tell ya!
If you don’t have a passport and you can’t get a copy of your birth certificate from where you were born, you are going to have a real hard time getting a passport.
Most people can get a copy of their birth certificate from where they were born, it is just a hassle. In any case, only 68 million or so Americans have passports. I would expect more and more are getting them now that you can’t even do Canada or Mexico (by air) without them. But that’s a recent thing.
Here’s a state by state guide. I note that my home state seems to suggest that getting a *certified* copy is a whole hassle on top of the regular hassle. It also costs a lot. All this is a bad bad idea when it comes to a non-problem in elections.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w.htm
It is a smart thing to do to get a birth certificate or some other official document that serves as one. You need to have documents like that to retire, get social security and to get medicare. Family bibles count too. It is probably a good idea to have this taken care of before the 11th hour.
I honesty don’t think that it is that big of a hassle to get a birth certificate. You write to the Vital Statistic in the capital city of the state where you were born. They send it to you, for a small fee. You can also order it online and pay with a credit card.
Also, if you unintentionally let your driver’s license expire, you will be asked to prove legal presence. If you want a passport, prepare to fork over a birth certificate. They mail it back to you. They aren’t woofing.
If you are an American citizen, you will need the same things you need to prove citizenship as legal presence. Old people should be the very first people to get this type of work in order.
I don’t think there is much proof of non-citizens voting. I think most of the illegal voting is done by home grown folks.
But none of this is really the issue. The issue is once again the twisting and spinning the night away has taken place, without regard to the REAL story.
Leila, it shouldn’t be a hassle since much of what we now have to prove has been decreed by homeland security.
I think you have to have a passport now to go into Canada. I tried to do it 3 years ago (driving) and got a ration of you know what from both sides. They wanted a passport. I hadn’t planned on going to Canada, so I came very ill-prepared. The voter registration card and legal presense drivers license cut no ice with either the Canadians coming in or the Americans coming back. The law has changed since I was almost a woman without a country also.
That’s true about having an official copy of your birth certificate handy. And even a passport, for that matter. It’s one of those things that you rarely PLAN to need, but when and if you do need it, you’ll know it was worth the effort to get it. Sometimes unplanned things happen and you’re glad you have that kind of documentation handy.
Moon Howler….what would Greg do? Am I interpreting that right in that being the level you’re aiming for? Or am I misinterpreting that?
This is an article based upon US Government Accountability Office on potential voter fraud in the US by non-citizen voting…
Election Edge Back to Society
Illegal Immigrants Are Voting in American Elections
Hans A. von Spakovsky August 4th 2008
In 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration rolls over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens. While that may not seem like many, just 3 percent of registered voters would have been more than enough to provide the winning presidential vote margin in Florida in 2000. Indeed, the Census Bureau estimates that there are over a million illegal aliens in Florida, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted more non-citizen voting cases in Florida than in any other state.
Florida is not unique. Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant: Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens illegally registered to vote.
Yet there is no reliable method to determine the number of non-citizens registered or actually voting because most laws to ensure that only citizens vote are ignored, are inadequate, or are systematically undermined by government officials. Those who ignore the implications of non-citizen registration and voting either are willfully blind to the problem or may actually favor this form of illegal voting.
Americans may disagree on many areas of immigration policy, but not on the basic principle that only citizens—and not non-citizens, whether legally present or not—should be able to vote in elections. Unless and until immigrants become citizens, they must respect the laws that bar non-citizen voting. To keep non-citizens from diluting citizens’ votes, immigration and election officials must cooperate far more effectively than they have to date, and state and federal officials must increase their efforts to enforce the laws against non-citizen voting that are already on the books.
I see nothing wrong with having to demonstrate citizenship in order to vote. Some argue that older people maynot be able to come up with proper paperwork. How do these folks collect Social Security? Medicare? They would have to prove identification for those benefits.
Lucky Duck,
I think demonstrating it once should be enough. I don’t think it is necessary to prove citizenship each and every time I vote. The fact that this is just about the only thing that seperates us from non-citizens should make it less cumbersome. I wouldn’t mind having a citizen card like is done in other countries.
Slow, Not sure what you think I was referring to re What would Greg do? If the shoe were on the other foot and anti had borked a bud, he would be relentless. He would chew us up and spit out the bones. So he shouldn’t mind a little good humored laughter, at his expense, of course.
Thank you Lucky Duck, for presenting facts to those who make assumptions that NO ONE EVER tries to circumvent the law and “illegal” immigration is not a problem in the US.
So many of you who love “illegal” aliens think you are justified in lawlessness and want the rest of us just need to cave into your “new nation” way of thinking.
We are not going to let ANYONE have amnesty, we are going to go the distance as long as necessary to find and deport the current “illegal” aliens, and we are going to search and find every record, every illegal document, every “illegal” immigrant crime committed in the past 25 years, every lie told, every illegal document used, every license obtained illegally and hold every person accountable for the crimes and lawlessness they committed in the past. NO-ONE is goinf to be grandfathered in, and no-one who committed fraud and obtained fraudulent documentation and licensing is going to be “waived” as FORGIVEN. There will be no amnesty and there will be no forgiveness, and there will be no expediency to “pretend the problem was never a problem”, because history has shown everytime politicians do this, they only incentivise even more people to break the law and commit fraud in the future.
What Bob Marshall does not understand is that it is not enough to take care of things in the future, and do it right in the future, but it is a matter of ethics and principle that Americans are fed up about, when we ignore the issues and do not clean up the past.
We are NOT going to let 12 million “illegal” immigrants remain in this country, and encourage 12 million more to come in the next 10 years.
It’s not going to happen. What Bob Marshall and so many other politicians don’t get is that there are 306 Million Americans in the US that are tired of political expediency, lack of political ethics, and tired of ANY compromise on the “illegal” alien issue, because compromising for 25 YEARS has done NOTHING but continue to perpetuate the problems that affect ALL of us in hundreds of negative ways.
By the way, 3% of 250 million estimated US citizens that can be called for jury duty gives an estimate of some 6 million “illegal” immigrants and non-citizens of the some 45-60 million formerly illegal immigrants and non-citizens who have infiltrated our politics, our government and our political organizations, and WHO ARE NOT citizens, but they are deeply affecting the outcome of our society to FAVOR ONLY THEIR OWN ETHNIC, RELIGIOUS, GENDER and ETHNIC GROUP self-interests.
This is NOT a democratic, non-discrimminatory value system that America stands for.
Bob Marshall, do you not understand, that although we NEED YOUR BILL, IT MUST NOT LET ANYONE OFF THE HOOK FROM LAWS BROKEN IN THE PAST. NO-ONE can be GRANDFATHERED. WE MUST ALL RE-REGISTER and do whatever it takes to clean up our nation, from the past “illegal” activities of lawbreakers.
–We are not going to let ANYONE have amnesty, we are going to go the distance as long as necessary to find and deport the current “illegal” aliens, and we are going to search and find every record, every illegal document, every “illegal” immigrant crime committed in the past 25 years, every lie told, every illegal document used, every license obtained illegally and hold every person accountable for the crimes and lawlessness they committed in the past. NO-ONE is goinf to be grandfathered in, and no-one who committed fraud and obtained fraudulent documentation and licensing is going to be “waived” as FORGIVEN. There will be no amnesty and there will be no forgiveness, and there will be no expediency to “pretend the problem was never a problem”, because history has shown everytime politicians do this, they only incentivise even more people to break the law and commit fraud in the future.–
Who is this “we” we keep hearing about? I hope “we” has a lot of money.
PAP: I was thinking the EXACT same thing as I read that howler.
–How do these folks collect Social Security? Medicare? They would have to prove identification for those benefits.–
If that is so, then a social security or medicare card should serve as proof of citizenship, right?
No, you don’t need to be a citizen to have a social security card. Legal permanent residents get them too, as they have the right to work, etc. So that isn’t sufficient to prove citizenship.
No, you can collect some social benefits without being a citizen.
My point was that these folks had to, at some point, provide identification to someone to obtain the benefits. So if presenting ID to obtain benefits is ok, why is it such a hardship to produce them when voting. I was using it as a point to those who claim producing ID is a hardship on older people.
No, resident, I meant whatever card it is you use to get social security and medicare benefits. I mean like an ID card or whatever they use. They must use SOMETHING, don’t they, to identify themselves as SS recipients? Maybe I’m way off.
Social security cards and medicare cards are not used for ID purposes. They can’t be. What is to keep me from using yours? (ss?)
Our point is, you need birth certificates and passports to get social security cards, start medicare benefits. You need need to resent a birth certificate to retire if any sorts of benefits are involved because of tax laws. Actually an entire fleet of documents is needed but a birth certificate is the cornerstone.
It is also a good idea to have a copy of a marriage certificate on hand, especially if your name no longer matches your birth name. You need both BC and marriage at DMV if you have to prove legal presence. While you are ordering up those other things, grab any divorce degrees. You never know when those might be needed in the future.
We is the majority pinko… and yes the majority has a lot of money when their very future financial existance depends on cleaning up “illegal” immigration.
And why do we care about “legal presence”? Because being “illegal” undermines and destroys our entire society and financial security. If “illegal” immigration did not destroy our society and circumvent law, increasing crime and fraud, then not ONE of us would need ANY documentation at all.
Good point! Why do we need passports to travel to different countries? It makes perfect sense to most people that passports are required, and few object to the requirement. Yet people here in the states are so behind allowing people to cross into our country as they please. So lets hear all the arguments against passports. I’m sure any supporters of illegals here could come up with all kinds of senseless reasons. Most centered around ‘personal freedoms’ I’m guessing.
Actually I haven’t heard anyone here on this blog advocating open borders. If I am in error, those people may correct me. Anyone entering the United States must enter on a passport, I believe the new law states. That includes American citizens. They dont just take your word for it any more.
Lucky, people already have to present ID to vote, just not proof of citizenship. Didn’t you get asked for ID in Virginia? The article you posted at 12:33 has a headline about illegal immigrants, but the text is about non-citizens. We all know non-citizens can be legal. You don’t cite a source for the article, but poking around the net its provenance seems a bit dubious. To me having that headline and then having the text contradict the headline is enough to throw it into doubt. The issue is whether the problem of non-citizens attempting to vote is so great that we want to begin a process of forcing the entire American electorate into a new procedure. I don’t think the problem rises to that level.
M-H, I am not sure they ever took your word for it. It was just that going between the US and either Canada or Mexico (and maybe some places in the Caribbean) didn’t require a passport, but did require ID. But entering from anywhere else has required a passport before any new law. Close to half of the illegal immigrants in this country entered the country legally.
Marshall was trying to appease the fringe elements of the party, and here he gets attacked by the fringe elements of the party. That’s what happens when moderates try to appease extremists. It’s a marriage made in hell, and I for one would like a divorce.
Letiecq is a circus freak with no credibility or influence. It’s a desperate attempt to get some attention from outside his narrow circle, and Marshall fell for the bait.
I wish he’d stayed above the fray. The only reason people are having so much fun with this is that it’s a Republican attacking a Republican.
Leila,
Your comment about forcing all persons to adhere to a rule because of the actions of a few is exactly what occurs with most laws. The law addresses the few in most cases. If everyone acted within the norm, then we wouldn’t have to enact a law making actions outside the norm illegal. If we abandon that idea, then we abandon law in most situations. So affecting the majority for the actions of the minority is just part of the human condition.
“I was using it as a point to those who claim producing ID is a hardship on older people.”
Point taken, Lucky, though I still think a law like this would deter voters from registering. That is my primary concern.
MH, thanks for the information on medicare cards.
This is for Leila, here is the entire article. As you can see, it is based upon a US Government Accountabilty Office study of improper voter trends. The author is
Hans A. von Spakovsky who served as a member of the Federal Election Commission for two years. Before that, he was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he specialized in voting and election issues. He also served as a county election official in Georgia for five years as a member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections
Hardly dubious Leila…
The Cutting Edge
reaching 1.4 million monthly
Friday
February 13 2009
Election Edge Back to Society
Illegal Immigrants Are Voting in American Elections
Hans A. von Spakovsky August 4th 2008
In 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration rolls over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens. While that may not seem like many, just 3 percent of registered voters would have been more than enough to provide the winning presidential vote margin in Florida in 2000. Indeed, the Census Bureau estimates that there are over a million illegal aliens in Florida, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted more non-citizen voting cases in Florida than in any other state.
Florida is not unique. Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant: Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens illegally registered to vote.
Yet there is no reliable method to determine the number of non-citizens registered or actually voting because most laws to ensure that only citizens vote are ignored, are inadequate, or are systematically undermined by government officials. Those who ignore the implications of non-citizen registration and voting either are willfully blind to the problem or may actually favor this form of illegal voting.
Americans may disagree on many areas of immigration policy, but not on the basic principle that only citizens—and not non-citizens, whether legally present or not—should be able to vote in elections. Unless and until immigrants become citizens, they must respect the laws that bar non-citizen voting. To keep non-citizens from diluting citizens’ votes, immigration and election officials must cooperate far more effectively than they have to date, and state and federal officials must increase their efforts to enforce the laws against non-citizen voting that are already on the books.
An Enduring Problem
Costas Bakouris, head of the Greek chapter of Transparency International, says in an interview that ending corruption is easy: enforce the law. Illegal voting by immigrants in America is nothing new. Almost as long as there have been elections, there have been Tammany Halls trying to game the ballot box. Well into the 20th century, the political machines asserted their ascendancy on Election Day, stealing elections in the boroughs of New York and the wards of Chicago. Quite regularly, Irish immigrants were lined up and counted in canvasses long before the term “citizen” ever applied to them—and today it is little different.
Yet in the debates over what to do about the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens estimated to be in the United States, there has been virtually no discussion of how to ensure that they (and millions of legal aliens) do not register and vote in elections.
Citizenship is and should be a basic requirement for voting. Citizenship is a legal requirement to vote in federal and state elections, except for a small number of local elections in a few jurisdictions.
Some Americans argue that alien voting is a nonexistent problem or dismiss reported cases of non-citizen voting as unimportant because, they claim, there are no cases in which non-citizens “intentionally” registered to vote or voted “while knowing that they were ineligible.” Even if this latter claim were true—which it is not—every vote cast by a non-citizen, whether an illegal alien or a resident alien legally in the country, dilutes or cancels the vote of a citizen and thus disenfranchises him or her. To dismiss such stolen votes because the non-citizens supposedly did not know they were acting illegally when they cast a vote debases one of the most important rights of citizens.
The evidence is indisputable that aliens, both legal and illegal, are registering and voting in federal, state, and local elections. Following a mayor’s race in Compton, California, for example, aliens testified under oath in court that they voted in the election. In that case, a candidate who was elected to the city council was permanently disqualified from holding public office in California for soliciting non-citizens to register and vote. The fact that non-citizens registered and voted in the election would never have been discovered except for the fact that it was a very close election and the incumbent mayor, who lost by less than 300 votes, contested it.
Similarly, a 1996 congressional race in California may have been stolen by non-citizen voting. Republican incumbent Bob Dornan was defending himself against a spirited challenger, Democrat Loretta Sanchez. Sanchez won the election by just 979 votes, and Dornan contested the election in the U.S. House of Representatives. His challenge was dismissed after an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform turned up only 624 invalid votes by non-citizens who were present in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) database because they had applied for citizenship, as well as another 124 improper absentee ballots. The investigation, however, could not detect illegal aliens, who were not in the INS records.
The Oversight Committee pointed out the elephant in the room: “If there is a significant number of ‘documented aliens,’ aliens in INS records, on the Orange County voter registration rolls, how many illegal or undocumented aliens may be registered to vote in Orange County?” There is a strong possibility that, with only about 200 votes determining the winner, enough undetected aliens registered and voted to change the outcome of the election. This is particularly true since the California Secretary of State complained that the INS refused his request to check the entire Orange County voter registration file, and no complete check of all of the individuals who voted in the congressional race was ever made.
The “Quick Ticket”
Non-citizen voting is likely growing at the same rate as the alien population in the United States; but because of deficiencies in state law and the failure of federal agencies to comply with federal law, there are almost no procedures in place that allow election officials to detect, deter, and prevent non-citizens from registering and voting. Instead, officials are largely dependent on an “honor system” that expects aliens to follow the law. There are numerous cases showing the failure of this honor system.
The frequent claim that illegal aliens do not register in order “to stay below the radar” misses the fact that many aliens apparently believe that the potential benefit of registering far outweighs the chances of being caught and prosecuted. Many district attorneys will not prosecute what they see as a “victimless and non-violent” crime that is not a priority.
On the benefit side of the equation, a voter registration card is an easily obtainable document—they are routinely issued without any checking of identification—that an illegal alien can use for many different purposes, including obtaining a driver’s license, qualifying for a job, and even voting. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, for example, requires employers to verify that all newly hired employees present documentation verifying their identity and legal authorization to work in the United States. In essence, this means that new employees have to present evidence that they are either U.S. citizens or legal aliens with a work permit. The federal I-9 form that employers must complete for all new employees provides a list of documentation that can be used to establish identity—including a voter registration card.
How aliens view the importance of this benefit was illustrated by the work of a federal grand jury in 1984 that found large numbers of aliens registered to vote in Chicago. As the grand jury reported, many aliens “register to vote so that they can obtain documents identifying them as U.S. citizens” and have “used their voters’ cards to obtain a myriad of benefits, from social security to jobs with the Defense Department.” The U.S. Attorney at the time estimated that there were at least 80,000 illegal aliens registered to vote in Chicago, and dozens were indicted and convicted for registering and voting.
The grand jury’s report resulted in a limited cleanup of the voter registration rolls in Chicago, but just one year later, INS District Director A. D. Moyer testified before a state legislative task force that 25,000 illegal and 40,000 legal aliens remained on the rolls in Chicago. Moyer told the Illinois Senate that non-citizens registered so they could get a voter registration card for identification, adding that the card was “a quick ticket into the unemployment compensation system.” An alien from Belize, for example, testified that he and his two sisters were able to register easily because they were not asked for any identification or proof of citizenship and lied about where they were born. After securing registration, he voted in Chicago.
Once such aliens are registered, of course, they receive the same encouragement to vote from campaigns’ and parties’ get-out-the-vote programs and advertisements that all other registered voters receive. Political actors have no way to distinguish between individuals who are properly registered and non-citizens who are illegally registered.
A Failure to Cooperate
Obtaining an accurate assessment of the size of this problem is difficult. There is no systematic review of voter registration rolls by states to find non-citizens, and the relevant federal agencies—in direct violation of federal law—refuse to cooperate with state election officials seeking to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. Federal immigration law requires these agencies to “respond to an inquiry by a Federal, State, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information,” regardless of any other provision of federal law, such as the Privacy Act. However, examples of refusal to cooperate are legion:
— In declining to cooperate with a request by Maryland to check the citizenship status of individuals registered to vote there, a spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) mistakenly declared that the agency could not release that information because “it is important to safeguard the confidentiality of each legal immigrant, especially in light of the federal Privacy Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
One surprising result of this policy: In 2004, a guilty verdict in a murder trial in Maryland was jeopardized because a non-citizen was discovered on the jury—which had been chosen from the voter rolls.
— In 2005, Sam Reed, the Secretary of State of Washington, asked the CIS to check the immigration status of registered voters in Washington; the agency refused to cooperate.
— A request from the Fulton County, Georgia, Board of Registration and Elections in 1998 to the old Immigration and Naturalization Service to check the immigration status of 775 registered voters was likewise refused for want of a notarized consent from each voter because of “federal privacy act” concerns.
— In 1997, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Dallas were investigating voting by non-citizens. They sent a computerized tape of the names of individuals who had voted to the INS requesting a check against INS records, but the INS refused to cooperate with the criminal investigation. An INS official was quoted as saying that the INS bureaucracy did not “want to open a Pandora’s Box…. If word got out that this is a substantial problem, it could tie up all sorts of manpower. There might be a few thousand [illegal voters] in Dallas, for example, but there could be tens of thousands in places like New York, Chicago or Miami.”
These incidents show that the CIS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the successor agencies to the INS, are either ignorant of federal legal requirements or deliberately ignoring them. An inquiry by a state or local election official regarding voter eligibility based on citizenship falls squarely within their statutory authority.
To be sure, CIS and ICE databases are not comprehensive; they contain information only about legal immigrants who have applied for the documentation necessary to be in the United States and illegal immigrants who have been detained. But even access to that information would be a big step forward for election officials in their attempts to try to clean up registration lists and find those aliens who are illegally registered and voting in elections.
The Honor System
The refusal of federal agencies to obey the law compels local election officials to rely almost entirely on the “honor system” to keep non-citizens from the polls. As Maryland’s state election administrator has complained, “There is no way of checking…. We have no access to any information about who is in the United States legally or otherwise.”
Most discoveries of non-citizens on the registration rolls are therefore accidental. Though the Department of Justice has no procedures in place for a systematic investigation of these types of criminal violations, in just a three year period, it prosecuted and convicted more than a dozen non-citizens who registered and voted in federal elections in Alaska, Florida, the District of Columbia, and Colorado. Among them was an alien in southern Florida, Rafael Velasquez, who not only voted, but even ran for the state legislature. Eight of the 19 September 11 hijackers were registered to vote in either Virginia or Florida—registrations that were probably obtained when they applied for driver’s licenses.
In 1994, Mario Aburto Martinez, a Mexican national and the assassin of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, was found to have registered twice to vote in California. A random sample of just 10 percent of the 3,000 Hispanics registered to vote in California’s 39th Assembly District by an independent group “revealed phony addresses and large numbers of registrants who admitted they were not U.S. citizens.” This problem may be partially explained by the testimony of a Hispanic member of the Los Angeles Police Department who had been a volunteer for the California-based Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. When she reported to her supervisor that her fellow volunteers were not asking potential voters whether they were citizens, she was reprimanded “and told that she was not to ask that question…only whether the person wished to register to vote.” Similarly, the Dornan–Sanchez investigation produced an affidavit from a non-citizen stating that the Sanchez campaign’s field director, an elected member of the Anaheim Board of Education, told him that it “didn’t matter” that he was not a U.S. citizen—he should register and vote anyway.
In 2006, Paul Bettencourt, Voter Registrar for Harris County, Texas, testified before the U.S. Committee on House Administration that the extent of illegal voting by foreign citizens in Harris County was impossible to determine but “that it has and will continue to occur.” Twenty-two percent of county residents, he explained, were born outside of the United States, and more than 500,000 were non-citizens. Bettencourt noted that he cancelled the registration of a Brazilian citizen in 1996 after she acknowledged on a jury summons that she was not a U.S. citizen. Despite that cancellation, however, “She then reapplied in 1997, again claiming to be a U.S. citizen, and was again given a voter card, which was again cancelled. Records show she was able to vote at least four times in general and primary elections.”
In 2005, Bettencourt’s office turned up at least 35 cases in which foreign nationals applied for or received voter cards, and he pointed out that Harris County regularly had “elections decided by one, two, or just a handful of votes.” In fact, a Norwegian citizen was discovered to have voted in a state legislative race in Harris County that was decided by only 33 votes. Nor is this problem unique to Harris County. Recent reports indicate that hundreds of illegal aliens registered to vote in Bexar County, Texas, and that at least 41 of them have voted, some several times, in a dozen local, state, and federal elections.
In 2005, Arizona passed Proposition 200, which requires anyone registering to vote to provide “satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship,” such as a driver’s license, a birth certificate, a passport, naturalization documents, or any other documents accepted by the federal government to prove citizenship for employment purposes. The state issues a “Type F” driver’s license to individuals who are legally present in the United States but are not citizens. Since Proposition 200 took effect, 2,177 non-citizens applying for such licenses have attempted to register to vote. Another 30,000 have been denied registration because they could not produce evidence of citizenship.
The constitutionality of Arizona’s requirement is currently being litigated in federal court. The district court hearing the case refused to issue a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the law, and the Supreme Court vacated a preliminary injunction issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Trial is scheduled for July 2008. The plaintiffs will have to convince the presiding judge that the very same proof of citizenship required by the federal government before an individual can work is somehow unlawful when imposed by a state before a person can vote.
Some non-citizen registrations can be detected through the jury process. The vast majority of state and federal courts draw their jury pools from voter registration lists, and the jury questionnaires used by court clerks ask potential jurors whether they are U.S. citizens. In most states, however, and throughout the federal court system, court clerks rarely notify local election officials that potential jurors have sworn under oath that they are not U.S. citizens. In jurisdictions that share that information, election officials routinely discover non-citizens on the voter rolls. For example, the district attorney in Maricopa County, Arizona, testified that after receiving a list of potential jurors who admitted they were not citizens, he indicted 10 who had registered to vote. (All had sworn on their registration forms that they were U.S. citizens.) Four had actually voted in elections. The district attorney was investigating 149 other cases.
The county recorder in Maricopa County had also received inquiries from aliens seeking verification, for their citizenship applications, that they had not registered or voted. Thirty-seven of those aliens had registered to vote, and 15 of them had actually voted. As the county’s district attorney explained, these numbers come “from a relatively small universe of individuals—legal immigrants who seek to become citizens…. These numbers do not tell us how many illegal immigrants have registered and voted.” Even these small numbers, though, could have been enough to sway an election. A 2004 Arizona primary election, explained the district attorney, was determined by just 13 votes. Clearly, non-citizens who illegally registered and voted in Maricopa County could have determined the outcome of the election.
These numbers become more alarming when one considers that only a very small percentage of registered voters are called for jury duty in most jurisdictions. The California Secretary of State reported in 1998 that 2,000 to 3,000 of the individuals summoned for jury duty in Orange County each month claimed an exemption from jury service because they were not U.S. citizens, and 85 percent to 90 percent of those individuals were summoned from the voter registration list, rather than Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records. While some of those individuals may have simply committed perjury to avoid jury service, this represents a significant number of potentially illegal voters: 20,400 to 30,600 non-citizens summoned from the voter registration list over a one-year period.
Helping Aliens Vote
Under the Constitution, an individual’s eligibility to vote is left mostly to the states. Article I and the 17th Amendment provide that the electors for Members of Congress shall have the qualifications for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures. Article II provides that presidential electors shall be chosen in the manner directed by state legislatures. All of the states require voters to be U.S. citizens to vote in state elections, and 18 U.S.C. § 611 makes it a crime for “any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector,” or Congress.
Other federal laws authorize the Justice Department to prosecute non-citizens for registering and voting in elections. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) requires individuals registering to vote to affirm eligibility requirements, including citizenship. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) added a specific citizenship question to the federal voter registration form. Since citizenship is clearly material to a voter’s eligibility, aliens can be prosecuted for providing false registration information and voting under the NVRA. They can also be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f), which criminalizes making a false statement or claim about citizenship “in order to register to vote or to vote in any Federal, State, or local election (including an initiative, recall, or referendum),” and under 18 U.S.C. § 911, which prohibits making a false claim of citizenship.
The NVRA has contributed to the problem of aliens registering to vote. The largest source of voter registrations are state programs created under Section 5 of the NVRA, known as “Motor Voter,” which requires all states to allow individuals who apply for a driver’s license to register to vote at the same time. States such as Maryland, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses, and other states, such as Tennessee, provide licenses to resident aliens.
To comply with Motor Voter, states automatically offer voter registration to all applicants for a driver’s license. Most government employees do so even when they know the applicants are not citizens because these employees do not want to face claims that they discriminated based on ethnicity, and they believe it is the responsibility of election officials, not state DMVs, to determine the eligibility of voter registration applicants. Yet when license bureaus submit completed registration forms to state election officials, they often omit the citizenship status of the applicants.
Savvy politicians may already have taken advantage of this state of affairs. During the Clinton Administration, for example, the Justice Department allegedly forced states to offer voter registration to non-citizens. In response, the Texas Secretary of State reportedly asked his attorney general to sue the department.
Confusion still reigns in the states. In 2004, a Maryland state legislator contacted the DOJ to express his concern that the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles was allowing non-citizens applying for driver’s licenses to register to vote. When he asked the DMV to stop, he was told that it was required by the NVRA to offer all driver’s license applicants the opportunity to register to vote. The Justice Department quickly sent the Maryland delegate a letter pointing out that the NVRA had no such requirement and that federal law makes it a crime for a non-citizen to register. The letter went on to say that a state that issues licenses to non-citizens should not offer such an individual the right to register to vote. Nonetheless, there is no evidence that the Maryland DMV has changed its procedures to deter non-citizens from registering, and Maryland officials recently testified that they were issuing 2,000 driver’s licenses per week to undocumented aliens.
Utah, which issues licenses to illegal aliens, switched to a two-tiered system that issues a visibly different “driving privilege” card to illegal aliens after a limited 2005 audit by the state’s Legislative Auditor General. The audit found that hundreds of illegal aliens had registered to vote when they obtained their Utah driver’s licenses—and at least 14 of them had voted. The audit used a small sample; Utah State Senator Mark Madsen said that an extrapolation of the audit numbers suggested that 5,000 to 7,000 aliens were registered to vote.
This problem has been exacerbated by many states’ interpretation of a HAVA provision that requires a citizenship question on the federal mail-in voter registration form. The provision, in 42 U.S.C. § 15483, requires the following question: “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?” If an applicant fails to answer this question, HAVA provides that the local election official must notify the applicant of the failure and “provide the applicant with an opportunity to complete the form in a timely manner to allow for the completion of the registration form” prior to the election. Under the threat of lawsuits by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, states such as Ohio, Iowa, and South Dakota will register an individual even if he fails to answer the citizenship question. The Justice Department so far has failed to sue these states to force compliance with HAVA.
HAVA also imposes an identification requirement for first-time voters who register by mail. Many states, including California, have interpreted this provision to apply only to registration forms received through the U.S. mail, so the requirement is easily avoided by turning in the registration form directly to election officials. Additionally, documents named in the law as acceptable forms of identification for voter registration, such as utility bills and bank statements, are easily obtained by non-citizens. HAVA also requires applicants to provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number but allows an individual to register even if he has neither number.
Practical Solutions
There are several changes that states and the federal government can and should make to prevent non-citizens from registering and voting illegally in state and federal elections:
* Congress and state legislatures should require all federal and state courts to notify local election officials when individuals summoned for jury duty from voter registration rolls are excused because they are not United States citizens. United States Attorneys are already under a similar obligation: Under the NVRA, they must send information on felony convictions to local election officials so that the felons can be removed from voter registration rolls.
— All states should require anyone who registers to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. This requirement should be identical to the federal requirement of proof for employment.
— ICE and CIS should comply with federal law and confirm the citizenship status of registered voters when they receive requests for such information from state and local election officials. If the agencies decline to do so, they should be investigated by Congress and the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for their failure to follow the law.
— The database, known as E-Verify, that is being used by U.S. employers to check the citizenship status of prospective employees should be made available to election officials and administrators of the statewide registration databases required by HAVA so that election officials can run database comparisons to identify registered voters who are not citizens.
— The DOJ should file enforcement actions against all states that allow an individual to register to vote when he or she has not answered the citizenship question on the voter registration form required by HAVA.
— Local district attorneys must be made to realize that registration and voting by non-citizens are offenses against the basic principles of our democratic system and that such cases must be prosecuted. CIS and ICE should also realize that all information they have on non-citizen voting—such as when immigrants applying for citizenship admit they have registered and voted or when illegal aliens who are detained are found to possess voter registration cards or other documents indicating they are registered to vote—must be referred to the DHS for institution of removal proceedings, to the DOJ for prosecution, and to the relevant election officials so that the individual can be struck from the registration rolls.
— The DOJ should conduct a survey of all state DMVs to determine which ones have rules and procedures in place that prevent non-citizens who apply for driver’s licenses from registering to vote and then file enforcement actions against any state that refuses to comply with this requirement.
–A voter registration card should not be a valid identifying document to obtain a driver’s license or employment.
America has always been a nation of immigrants, and we remain today the most welcoming nation in the world. Newly minted citizens assimilate and become part of the American culture very quickly. Requiring that our laws—all of our laws— be complied with requires no more of an alien than it does of a citizen. It is a violation of both state and federal law for immigrants who are not citizens to vote in state and federal elections. These violations effectively disenfranchise legitimate voters whose votes are diluted, and they must be curtailed.
Election officials have an obligation not only to enforce those laws, but also to implement registration and election procedures that do not allow those laws to be bypassed or ignored. Anything less encourages contempt for the law and our election process. Lax enforcement of election laws permits individuals who have not entered the American social compact or made a commitment to the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and the U.S. cultural and political heritage to participate in elections and potentially change the outcome of closely contested races that affect how all Americans are governed.
Hans A. von Spakovsky served as a member of the Federal Election Commission for two years. Before that, he was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he specialized in voting and election issues. He also served as a county election official in Georgia for five years as a member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections.
SA, We already have the law that says only citizens can vote. Your analogy doesn’t work. This is an issue of enforcement and whether taking that on, asking tens of milllions of voters to now produce a birth certificate or passport before they can vote, is advisable given the extent of the problem of voter fraud. In law a central aspect is discretion. I can certainly spell this out more explicitly, but we all know we have certain laws on the books that are policed and enforced quite vigorously, others that are ignored entirely, and most that fall somewhere between in terms of enforcement and policing. I can give examples if you wish, but the important thing to note is that they are ALL LAWS, the issue is how much attention is paid.
I don’t think non-citizens should be allowed to vote. The question is is this enough of a problem to ask every single member of the native-born, non-naturalized American electorate to find or obtain the above particular documents before that person can vote. To do this would mean that every single voter in this country would have to be re-certified to participate in the process. I simply don’t think the threat warrants that kind of massive bureaucratic action.
How about just showing your voter registration card? No passport, no birth certificate at the polls. You do have to prove citizenship to obtain one, but at some point we all got one when we registered to vote.
Lucky, a URL would have been sufficient for the full text. I am not sure why you didn’t choose that. The headline is still misleading since the problem is non-citizens voting. That relates to why I said this article was dubious. The Cutting Edge News is not a reporting news site, it is a conservative political advocacy site. That’s fine. No problem, but mainstream journalism operates under different sorts of standards.
Cutting Edge took this report from the Heritage Foundation and guess what, they changed the headline to make this about illegal immigrants. The original title of the Heritage report by Spakovsky was “THE THREAT OF NON-CITIZEN VOTING.” I would say Cutting Edge’s clear need to distort the original title’s wider scope, plus a bunch of other things/signs on their site, make me view them as dubious. You are certainly free to regard them as fully kosher in these and other actions. I will have to disagree. People should look at the real report not just because it has a legitimate title, not an alarmist biased headline, but because it has footnoted sources that are very important to evaluate in terms of the report’s assertions. The fact Cutting Edge also didn’t supply these footnotes speaks new volumes. It clearly wasn’t a space issue. They reproduced the Heritage report, this wasn’t a work of journalism, so they should have reproduced it as it was written.
Jeez Lucky!!! you don’t have to *prove* citizenship to obtain a voter registration card. You have to check a box that affirms it, as well as one that says you are over 18. You can do the whole thing by mail. You do have to give an SS number and a form of identity. Here’s the form, the rules, etc.
http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/documents/VoterRegistration/sbe_voter_app_DOJ-Printed.pdf
Mainstream media, do you mean like NBC/MSNBC (Shrills for Dems) or Fox News (Shrills for Repubs)? It takes more than belief in mainstream media to get a full story. I still think the creds of the author speak for themselves.
I agree with you on voter registration card, my error.
I didn’t post the URL because I wanted to play “Michael” for a morning.
Interesting you only talk about broadcast media. I didn’t say I believed wholeheartedly in the mainstream media, I said Cutting Edge changed the headline of this Heritage report in a very telling way (something you don’t address), that they omitted sources, and that Cutting Edge is not a news organization but a conservative advocacy site.
Oh Lucky! One Michael is enough 🙂
PS: Michael’s sagas are so chock-full of errors (historical, statistical, archaeological, you name it) as well as bizarreness that it long ago ceased to be worth contesting them most of the time.