Washington state's Department of Licensing has received multiple reports of foreign nationals getting automatically registered to vote in recent elections, according to emails
House Bill 2595, a bill that automatically registers people to vote when they are issued a driver’s license or renew an existing license if they provide a signature and are offered the chance to decline voter registration, went into effect in July 2018. Later that year, both the state's Department of Licensing and the Secretary of State’s Office began receiving complaints of foreign voter registration, according to the Center Square.
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An email from Vanessa Mathisen, an immigration attorney with World Relief Spokane, dated Nov. 7, 2018, claimed that “many of our clients are unwittingly getting registered to vote when they get their IDs, apply or receive any state benefits. Sometimes we find out because they get a summons for jury duty. Others we do not discover have been registered until they decide to apply for citizenship.”
Mathisen added that the Spokane Voter Registration office claimed they were told "it’s not a problem if a non-citizen registers to vote" when discussing the situation with the office. The attorney argued that the office's response is "false" and is "a problem."
"I don’t know what’s going on at the DOL counters exactly, but I do know that nearly all of my clients that have been registered to vote do not recall doing so, do not recall whether they were asked if they are a US citizen, and 100% of the time either did not speak English or they did not speak English well enough to understand the questions being posed to them,” Mathisen's email read.
Jace Anderson, a Department of Licensing Technical Operations Consultant, wrote in a response to Mathisen's email that the state agency “has policies to provide customers with LEP [limited English proficiency] with options and avenues" to help communicate with them.
In 2019, this issue returned when King County Elections Director Julie Wise wrote an email to King County Voter Education Fund on Oct. 29 regarding concerns about foreign voter registration. In her email, Wise claimed "a small number of voters" would receive a voting ballot due to accidentally getting registered "while getting a driver’s license or Washington State ID,” an issue she has discussed with the Department of Licensing and "will continue to do so.”
This issue persisted in 2020 when an unidentified woman wrote in an email dated Sept. 23 to the Department of Licensing, Washington's Secretary of State’s Office, and Pierce County Elections that a Chinese student was registered to vote and received a voting ballot, even though the student insisted he was not allowed to vote. The unidentified woman also claimed that something similar took place with a Ukrainian national.
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The woman added that the State Auditor's office claimed that the Department of Licensing had said "they carefully follow state regulations" to ensure that only U.S. citizens receive voting ballots, a claim she argued is "not happening."
"These are two instances when foreign nationals are presenting their foreign passports and automatically receiving election ballots," the woman's email read. "Both were not asked, ‘are you an American citizen?’ They proved, through their passports, that they were foreign nationals. I received answer that if a person is asked the question, ‘Are you an American citizen?’ and do not answer or do not understand English, they will be issued a voter registration card.”