Immigration Issue Centers : Immigration & Society
Non-Citizen Voting in Federal Elections
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In 1996, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, making it a federal crime for non-citizens to vote in any federal election (or state election, unless authorized by state law). As a penalty, ineligible non-citizens who knowingly vote may be deported. Additionally, a non-citizen who falsely claims to be a United States citizen is in violation of this law.
However, there are many documented reports of non-citizen voting,[1] [2] and there is no evidence of prosecution of the aliens for their action. With nearly 19 million foreign-born residents who are not U.S. citizens in the country in the 2000 Census and an estimated 9-11 million illegal residents (many of them not also counted in the Census), the potential is enormous for non-citizens to affect the outcome of elections.
Charges were made in at least three federal elections in California [3] [4] and twice in Florida[5] that voting by ineligible aliens may have determined the outcome of the election. For instance:
- In Florida, election observers say a “sizable number” of Florida votes in the 2000 election may have been cast by ineligible felons, illegal immigrants, and non-citizens. [6]
- In California, former Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan was defeated by Democrat Loretta Sanchez by 984 votes in the 1996 election. State officials found that at least 300 votes were cast illegally by non-citizens.[7]
Investigation of the allegations established that aliens had illegally voted in those elections, but not in sufficient numbers to have changed the result. Authorities appear not to have prosecuted any of the aliens who voted illegally.
It appears that in at least most of these cases, aliens who voted illegally may have done so unknowingly. This is a result of the enactment of The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) ― known as the Motor-Voter law ― which made the process of registering to vote nearly automatic for people applying for a state driver’s license or ID card, and called for distributing registration applications in state welfare offices.[8] Under this law, the information supplied by the applicant for a license doubles as information for voter registration unless the applicant indicates that he/she does not want to be registered to vote.[9] With driver’s licenses made available by several states to aliens (both legal and illegal), it seems likely that voter rolls now contain large numbers of non-citizens ― enough in close elections to change the outcome if those aliens illegally vote.[10] An effort in Congress in 1998 to preclude the registration of non-citizens was narrowly defeated.[11]
It is possible that some illegal aliens applying for driver’s licenses deliberately, rather than accidentally, may seek voter registration, in order to help establish identity for the purposes of illegal employment. The employer sanctions law adopted in 1986 to deter employment of illegal aliens allows a voter registration card to be used as one of the documents that establishes the employee’s identity. That document, plus a Social Security card, is all that is necessary to establish work eligibility.
Compounding the potential for non-citizen voting to corrupt our election process are two other offshoots from the 1993 NVRA. Absentee voting has become ubiquitous, so there is no opportunity for the elections officials to challenge the voter in person as a possible illegal voter or to monitor the voting to assure that the voter is voting independently. And, those who would challenge the eligibility of voters are constrained by protections against intimidation of voters.
The solution to the potential for aliens illegally voting and thereby corrupting elections is obvious. Anyone applying for voter registration who is foreign born should be asked to provide evidence of U.S. citizenship, and that information should be verified with the citizenship records of the Department of Homeland Security.
[1] “Fraud Roundup,” United Press International, January 26, 2001.
[2] “Putnam Opposed Voting Reform Act,” Lakeland, Florida Ledger, December 17, 2001. Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) is quoted: “Now we find that one of the guys that flew into the buildings in New York had voted in Florida,” (referring to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers). “Think about it,” he said. “You are told you are entitled to public assistance and then almost in the same breath asked if you want to register to vote. Now, if you think that registering to vote is tied to getting assistance or to getting your driver’s license, you are going to say, ‘Yes.’”
[3] Samuel Francis, “Voters—the Democrats Seek Them Everywhere,” Washington Times, February 17, 1995. “Fraudulent voting by illegal aliens or legal immigrants not yet citizens has been documented in a number of elections in the past — in Florida in 1989, in Los Angeles in 1988, and in some nine California counties in 1982, to mention only a few — and Republican Michael Huffington claims alien voting helped him lose last year’s California Senate race to Diane Feinstein.”
[4] “Ineligible Voters May Have Cast a Number of Florida Ballots,” Washington Times, November 29, 2000.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “Illegal Voters,” Honolulu Advertiser, September 9, 2000. Election officials found 543 Oahu residents who were not U.S. citizens had registered to vote. The officials speculated a number of factors may have resulted in the voter irregularities, including language barriers and the ease of voter registration.
[9] John Fund's Political Diary, Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2000. “Voter fraud has become a bigger problem since the 1993 federal Motor Voter law required states to allow people to register to vote when they get a driver’s licenses; 47 states don't require any proof of U.S. residence for enrollment.”
[10] On September 26, 1996, California’s Secretary of State ordered county voter registrars not to permit non-citizens to vote in the November 1996 elections, after it was revealed that 727 non-citizens in Los Angeles county had filled out the voter registration form attached to the driver’s license application under the new “motor voter” law.
[11] Rep. Steve Horn (R-CA-38), observing a rapid increase in non-citizen voting, introduced the Voter Eligibility Verification Act that would have given voter registrars the ability to eliminate non-citizen voting. Although the bill received a majority of the votes cast, the Rules under which it was brought to the House floor required a two-thirds majority and so it failed to pass. (H.R. 1428, 105th Congress) (Voter Eligibility Verification Pilot Program Act of 1998, H.R. 3485, 105th Congress)
Updated 11/03 |
