The latest trend in fixing our broken elections is worrying about aliens. For sure, foreigners are getting on the rolls and foreigners are voting.
Many years ago, this problem was apparent to me when I was in the election office in Philadelphia and a large box was marked, “non-citizen voting.”
It turns out that Pennsylvania led the way for aliens to register and vote.
We discovered a so-called “glitch” in Pennsylvania that led to between 10,000 and 100,000 foreigners getting on the rolls. This is still the subject of litigation now going on six years.
Pennsylvania admits they let aliens register and vote due to the “glitch,” but still refuses to provide the public with the records showing the extent of the problem and what was done to fix it. The Third Circuit will hear arguments shortly in the case that will impact foreigners getting on the voter rolls than most every case before it.
So what can be done about foreigners getting on the voter rolls? Unfortunately not as much as some would like. Here are some paths toward improvement.
The best solution would be for the federal government to open of the “SAVE” database to states. SAVE is a Department of Homeland Security database that contains every alien who has touched the federal government – from green card holder to detainee. If states were given access to SAVE to run bulk data comparisons with voter rolls, then the problem would be largely solved.
Unfortunately, DHS bureaucrats throttle access to SAVE, even from 2017 to 2020. They sure will in 2024. Very few states have negotiated the SAVE labyrinth and gained meaningful access. North Carolina has by entering into special agreements with DHS for SAVE data access.
Louisiana may be leading the way also to fix the problem of foreigners registering to vote.
If Senate Bill 436 reaches Governor Jeff Landry’s desk this summer, Louisiana will help fix the problem.
For over 30 years, Louisiana has operated under the National Voter Registration Act, more commonly known as Motor Voter, which mandates voter registration deadlines and processes. Too many registrants are marking "no," that they are not a citizen, and still getting registered to vote across the United States. I’ve seen hundreds of “checkbox no” registration forms from all around the country.
Louisiana is passing a proof of citizenship law that will hopefully take advantage of excellent work by Justice Antonin Scalia.
SB 436, which passed the Louisiana Senate, is a short read. The bill directs the Louisiana Secretary of State to design a new voter registration form that would require the applicant to show proof of U.S. citizenship. Election officials must collaborate with the Louisiana Attorney General to determine what types of information would be satisfactory proof. The current bill text requires the new form to be in circulation by 2025.
This bill, if enacted, should not be controversial in the courts. In 2013, a U.S. Supreme Court decision penned by the late Justice Antonin Scalia created a roadmap for states to follow if they wanted to modernize their own citizenship eligibility controls in voting. One option was to overhaul the state-printed voter registration forms. For the past decade, states from Arizona to Massachusetts have directly and indirectly followed Scalia’s guide. SB 436 is the logical next step.
If passed, this bill would fix the problem in Louisiana of foreigners casting ballots in Louisiana elections.
If the state specific instructions are no approved by the federal agency with that power, then a lawsuit should follow and blow up the barriers to state proof of citizenship requirements. Justice Scalia provided states with the roadmap.
Groups opposed to state proof of citizenship requirements should reconsider their opposition. State proof of citizenship helps aliens avoid deportation. For more than a generation, well-meaning legal immigrants have seen their pathways to naturalization halted because federal officials spotted voting records under their names. Most often, these are people who checked the wrong box on a DMV form—sometimes handed to them in a foreign language they do not speak and landed on voter rolls. Voter registration access has reached a point where some foreign nationals are enrolled without their knowledge or consent.
I know because I have reviewed the records where the aliens seek to be removed from the rolls.
It would not matter what type of proof of citizenship Louisiana’s SB 436 could eventually require – the process itself gives immigrants a second chance to ensure they are not signing a voting application prematurely. After all, they are the only people who face a battery of legal penalties ultimately ending in deportation. The DMV employee who hands the immigrant a voting application suffers no consequences.
This bill is an easy step forward to keep foreign nationals off the voter rolls. This is good for election security and for immigrants who would one day like to become U.S. citizens.
Other states should take notice and enact similar laws to ensure only Americans are voting in American elections.