Posted date: Tuesday, October 29, 2024
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Written by Shane Harris
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36 comments
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New research from the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) shows even more disturbing evidence that non-citizens are being registered to vote, and AMAC Action to ensure only eligible voters have access to the ballot box The importance of such efforts is emphasized.
“Despite stifling concerns about foreign interference in American elections, progressives have no interest in amending federal law to allow foreigners to register to vote,” PILF said in a press release last week. detailed multiple cases in which people were registered to vote. Vote in battleground states.
In Pennsylvania, for example, Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, alone reported 139 noncitizen voter registrations between 2006 and 2018. Of these, 27% had voted before. Election officials blamed a “glitch” in the county Department of Transportation’s online system that automatically registers individuals to vote.
In Michigan, election officials removed more than 1,400 noncitizens from voter rolls between 2011 and 2024. In Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona, authorities have canceled the voter registrations of more than 400 noncitizens since 2015. A separate PILF study in North Carolina identified 1,454 registered voters. It appears that he is not a legal U.S. citizen.
Notably, these findings only detail cases in which authorities or monitoring organizations such as PILF caught non-citizens registering to vote. In many cases, states release such information only after lengthy legal battles that obscure the full scope of the issue.
Much of PILF’s research dates back more than a decade, underscoring that the issue of unpopular voting is not new. But changes in election laws since 2020 and an unprecedented surge in illegal aliens crossing the U.S.-Mexico border over the past four years have dramatically increased the risks to election integrity.
In total, at least 10 million people have crossed the border illegally since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office in 2021, bringing the estimated total number of noncitizens in the United States to 24 million. A survey conducted earlier this year found that between 10 percent and 27 percent of noncitizens are likely to be registered to vote. Even a 10% floor would mean up to 2.4 million noncitizens could vote illegally in this year’s election.
Another 2014 academic study estimated that 6.4 percent of all noncitizens voted illegally in federal elections in 2008, with 81.8 percent of those reporting voting for Barack Obama. If the same percentage holds true this year, Kamala Harris could expect up to 1.2 million non-national votes.
Polls in battleground states show close races in all of these states, and even a few thousand votes could change the election. There are more than 787,000 noncitizens in Georgia, which was decided in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. North Carolina, which Trump won by 74,000 votes four years ago, has 726,000 noncitizens. Arizona, home to 611,000 non-citizens, favored Biden by less than 11,000 votes in 2020.
As AMAC Newsline previously reported, there are several glaring loopholes in both state and federal election laws that allow noncitizens access to the ballot box. In addition to not requiring identification to register to vote, 14 states also do not require a photo ID to actually vote. Twenty-eight states, including Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina, allow voters to use student IDs, which do not differentiate between citizens and noncitizens.
At least 19 other states and the District of Columbia have also passed laws allowing non-citizens to obtain driver’s licenses, again without mentioning whether someone is a citizen or a voter. Some cities, including the capital, now allow illegal aliens to vote in local elections.
While AMAC Action has made non-citizen voting one of its top priorities in its voter advocacy efforts this year, AMAC members are speaking out in statehouses and Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to take action to strengthen election integrity. is requesting that you take it.
AMAC Action supported a variety of state-level measures and strongly supported the Protection of American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in July. The bill would amend the National Voter Registration Act to require states to obtain documentation of U.S. citizenship and identity when registering individuals to vote in federal elections. It would also require states to establish programs to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls.
AMAC Action also launched get-out-the-vote campaigns in key states aimed at informing AMAC members about important issues such as election integrity and the threat of non-referendum votes. Notably, six states are voting on constitutional amendments to ban non-citizens from voting this year, and AMAC members are expected to be involved in all states.
AMAC Action efforts will continue through Election Day, with a special focus on early voting in the final weeks of the campaign.
Shane Harris is an author and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him at X @shaneharris513.