Timely 2024 election report from
The AP with this their headline story:
“Noncitizen voting isn’t an issue in federal elections, regardless of
conspiracy theories. Here’s why…”
Trump turned to one of his favorite themes and MAGA Mike Johnson GOP Speaker of the House has joined the conspiracy of immigrants improperly voting in federal elections.
In
fact, Johnson came to Mar-a-Lago to tell Trump that he
would be announcing a new bill to stop those who are
not citizens from voting.
Johnson and other MAGA conspiracy
nuts seen below announcing a bill he will introduce to stop massive voting fraud by
illegals – he calls it a “clear and present danger.” (WHICH BTW IS A LOAD OF
CRAP). It is a Federal crime to lie on voter registration by saying you are a citizen when you are not - that is crime and punishment is jail since that as a felony), and states do have ways to verify that - another Johnson lie. Stephen Miller lied, too. Ergo: Nothing new for the MAGA nuts.
Trump has made baseless claims about this subject before, like in 2016, when he blamed his loss of the popular vote on voting by immigrants, and then appointed a commission to investigate the issue.
He had to disband it
without having identifying a single case of a noncitizen casting a vote.
(NOTE: It was run
by then Secretary of State from KS Kris Kobach (I call it the K.K.K.
commission).
Trump and now other
Republican MAGA conspiracy nuts recently revved up their conspiratorial claims
about the issue with the influx of migrants across the southern border under
Biden, contending Democrats are letting them in to add them to the voter rolls.
The theory involves two complicated subjects, immigration
and voting, but it’s actually very simple. There isn’t any indication that
noncitizens vote in significant numbers in federal elections or that they will
in the future.
It’s already a Federal crime for them to vote in any federal
election.
We already know it’s not a
danger as Johnson said because various states have examined their rolls and found
very few noncitizen voters.
For example: The Brennan Center for Justice (the nation’s #1 voter and voting fraud experts) surveyed 44 election officials in some of the most populous and immigrant-heavy jurisdictions in the country after 2016, including AZ; CA; and TX.
They found only 30
incidents of a possible noncitizen voting out of over 23.5 million votes cast
in those three states.
Also, in 2016, NC audited
its elections to make sure no one voted improperly. They found incidents of where only 41 legal immigrants who had not yet become citizens
cast ballots. That’s was out of 4.8 million votes cast. Those illegal votes
didn’t make a difference in a single election in the state, even the smallest
local race, according to the state’s election board.
Trump’s DOJ later filed
criminal charges against 19 immigrants for illegally voting in NC.
Just to be clear, there have been other cases of noncitizens casting ballots, but they are extremely rare.
Those who have looked into these cases say they often involve legal immigrants who mistakenly believe they have the right to vote.
Speaker Johnson tried to address this, saying: “We cannot
wait for widespread fraud to occur.”
But one prior crackdown on purported noncitizen voting also risked striking thousands of actual citizens from the voting rolls. Here’s why noncitizen voting isn’t a real danger to the integrity of federal elections and the risks of changing federal law.
WHAT’S THE LAW
Federal law requires all voter registration forms to advise those signing up that they have to swear under penalty of perjury that they are a U.S. citizen. That has generally worked.
Immigrants who aren’t citizens especially don’t want to violate the law because it could jeopardize their ability to remain in the country or become citizens.
Some Republicans have long complained that federal laws don’t require additional checks on voter eligibility.
Johnson
vowed to introduce legislation requiring proof of citizenship before allowing
someone to register to vote, but he provided no further details.
It’s likely that such legislation wouldn’t make it out of
the Democratic-controlled Senate, and its main impact would be to use it as a
talking point against Democrats during the campaign.
One reason Democrats are wary is that when Texas tried to root out noncitizen voters in 2019, the effort ended up wrongly flagging tens of thousands of U.S. citizens as being ineligible to vote.
A federal judge blocked Texas from carrying out the law and the then-secretary of state resigned.
That shows the risks of adding new
identification checks to catch something that very rarely happens.
WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE
THAT THIS ISN’T A PROBLEM
All available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in
federal elections is incredibly rare. It’s illegal for people who aren’t U.S.
citizens to vote in federal elections, but it is legal for them to vote in
local elections if the jurisdiction allows it.
For example, a small number of a very small number of local jurisdictions, such as San Francisco and the District of Columbia, let immigrants
who haven’t become U.S. Citizens vote on races for school board and city
council.
Some
conservative states see no problems
First, we’re talking about
“noncitizen” voting, not voting by immigrants.
That’s because some
immigrants have become naturalized U.S. citizens and under the Constitution
have the same ability to cast a ballot just as for anyone who was born here.
Back in 2022, GA GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (BTW: who got that infamous 2020 call from Trump to find 11,780 votes) conducted an audit of GA’s voter rolls specifically looking for noncitizens.
His office found that 1,634 had attempted to register, but election officials had caught all the applications and none were actually registered to vote.
My 2 Cents: So, once again we see this Trump-run MAGA GOP professing another massive voting conspiracy and proposal to suppress the vote ahead of 2024… which is their long-term goal to please Trump and put him back in office.
Note in the video above the harsh
anti-immigrant advocate from the previous Trump administration, Stephen Miller
with his crazy remarks. Yeah that Stephen Miller – remember him?
Flashback to him in this key quote from Politico in 2028: “As free
Americans, and descendants of immigrants and refugees, we have the obligation
to exercise our conscience by voting for candidates who will stand up for our
highest national values and not succumb to our lowest fears. How do I know a
lot about Stephen Miller? Because I am his uncle.” ~ Wrote
David S. Glosser in that Politico article (August 13, 2018).
These things are precisely why Trump and his MAGA nuts must never ever regain power in DC – never. The only way to prevent that is to turn out a massive voter base that says: “No to Trump and his Project 2025 plan” and to stop him and MAGA Mike Johnson and the Stephen Miller types, et al.
Hope you agree, and please do what you can to help turn out the vote to prevent that from ever happening again in 2024 and forever, too.
Thanks for stopping by.
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