Foreign Interference? How Non-Citizens Are Voting in American Elections
by J. Christian Adams • May 30, 2023 at 5:00 am
You probably know the [National Voter Registration Act] as "Motor Voter." It is the federal requirement that requires state motor vehicle offices to offer voter registration and the ability to update your address.
Sounds convenient? Now, we have data showing one of the side effects of Motor Voter is to put non-citizens onto American voter rolls.
[W]e have collected extensive records of non-citizens asking to be removed from the voter rolls. Sometimes those records reveal how the foreign citizen was registered to vote, and the Motor Voter process represents the vast majority of cases.
Chicago officials provided registration records where some foreign nationals even checked "NO" to the question of whether the person is a United States citizen, and were still registered.
The Pennsylvania State Department admitted that due to what election officials referred to as a "glitch" that they had been accidentally registering foreign nationals to vote for two decades. They have been fighting for over five years to conceal details, including the number of foreign nationals the Commonwealth registered to vote by mistake.
The reports from Maricopa County and Chicago are not an inventory of every non-citizen vote, but only those who informed election officials they were not American citizens. So, the catalog of confessed non-citizens is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg.
What can be done about non-citizens registering to vote?
Congress can solve the problem by allowing states to validate citizenship effectively. This could be as easy as providing a passport, birth certificate or other evidence of being an American at the time of voter registration.
Another easy fix is for Congress to add citizenship to the National Voter Registration Act's reasonable voter list maintenance requirements for states. Motor Voter does not put the same obligation for states to keep voter rolls free from non-citizens as it does, for example, dead voters.
This month marks the 30th anniversary of President Bill Clinton signing the National Voter Registration Act into law. You probably know the law as "Motor Voter." It is the federal requirement that requires state motor vehicle offices to offer voter registration and the ability to update your address.
Sounds convenient? Now, we have data showing one of the side effects of Motor Voter is to put non-citizens onto American voter rolls.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, of which I am president, has been examining Motor Voter at 30; the good and the bad.
On one hand, the law has greatly increased the transparency in our elections. The law requires that all voter list maintenance records be available for public inspection. When elections are conducted with transparency, we trust the process more regardless of which candidate wins.
