Illegal Voters?

On Sunday, September 8, FOX News sent out an urgent breaking news email: "Department of Justice: Illegal immigrant stole the identity of a U.S. citizen to vote in multiple elections and obtain a U.S. passport."

The alleged offender voted in the 2016 and 2020 elections in Alabama and would have gone unpunished if it weren’t for efforts prompted by Republican lawmakers and state governments that pushed the federal State and Justice departments to investigate possible illegal voters, as Donald Trump claimed had happened in the 2020 elections.

Despite the loud headlines and FOX’s fervent support of Trump, the significance of discovering one undocumented individual who voted improperly only highlighted how rare the occurrence is. At the same time, it underscored the concern within a segment of the U.S. population about the increasing electoral competitiveness in a country split down the middle. In 2020, the difference in six key states was so narrow that shifting the opinions of 100,000 voters out of more than 20 million could have changed the result.

In 2019, Texas began investigating what Republican Party officials claimed was the registration of up to 100,000 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. However, according to a report from Axios, the number of alleged illegal registrations decreased as the accusations were scrutinized.

In Arizona, an error by the Department of Licensing added 97,000 people who had obtained driver's licenses before 1996 to the voter rolls, even though they hadn’t provided proof of citizenship. This error affected foreign immigrants, legal residents, and a largely Republican group.

As part of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, the Brennan Center for Justice examined around 23.5 million votes in 42 jurisdictions, searching for evidence of illegal voting by non-citizens, which Trump had frequently claimed. They found approximately 30 suspicious illegal votes.

Nonetheless, Trump has continued to accuse illegal voters of participating, which has largely eroded trust in elections, especially among Republicans.

For now, Republicans in Congress are pushing a bill called the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility), which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

According to the law, it is illegal for non-U.S. citizens to vote in the country’s elections, but Republicans in at least six states have included measures regarding non-citizen voting on the November 5 ballot, while at least two more are debating the issue.

Of course, in the 2020 election, 150 million people voted, and Republicans needed to find "scapegoats" for an unexpected defeat, which was decided by just a few thousand votes. A Politico report noted that "over the years there have been cases of non-citizens registering and even casting votes illegally."

For instance, three weeks ago, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that 137 suspected non-citizens were found on the state’s voter rolls, out of about 8 million voters, and measures were taken to remove them.

BY JOSÉ CARREÑO FIGUERAS

CONTRIBUTOR

JOSE.CARRENO@ELHERALDODEMEXICO.COM

@CARRENOJOSE

Nota publicada originalmente en El Heraldo de México