America Disenfranchised: Non-citizens Vote

America Disenfranchised: Non-citizens Vote

Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Feb. 2, 2002

With a bill outlining changes in federal election law proposed by Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., wending its way through Congress and the 2002 elections looming, a race is on to close loopholes in The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the Motor-Voter law) that critics say have made it easy for non-citizens to vote.

The Motor-Voter law requires that states permit anyone who gets a driver’s license to register to vote at the same time. Usually, applicants who register to vote are asked to affirm, without documentation, that they are citizens.

Forty-seven states do not require any proof of U.S. residence for enrollment. Motor-Voter has added and continues to add millions of people to the voting rolls.

Critics of Motor-Voter, such as the watchdog organization The United States Border Patrol, point out that when the Sept. 11 hijackers bought their one-way tickets to California, they identified themselves with driver's licenses from New Jersey, Michigan, Virginia and Florida – documents that could have gotten them voting privileges in the very nation they sought to destroy.

Among other things, under the Bond bill there would be:

A requirement that when a person registers under provisions of the Motor-Voter law - registers when getting a driver's license - the registration card will at least ask if the person is a citizen and will inform non-citizens that they may not register.

Provisional voting to allow a person not on the voting rolls to cast a vote that will be counted if it can be proved that a clerical error kept the person’s name off the rolls.

A bipartisan Election Administration Commission to help states and localities comply with federal law and other matters.

Statewide registration to make it more difficult for persons to be registered in several places and more difficult for local political organizations to register non-citizens or non-existent people.

During the 106th Congress, Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., introduced legislation to repeal the Motor-Voter law outright as the best way to discourage the registration and subsequent voting of non-citizens.

In 1996 Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, making voting by non-citizens an offense punishable by deportation. However, Congress failed to provide a mechanism by which state and local election officials could check on citizenship, ensuring enforcement.

Subsequently, Rep. Steve Horn, R-Calif., pushed the Voter Eligibility Verification Act, which would have given voter registrars the ability to eliminate non-citizen voting. Under parliamentary rules, however, the bill was bought to the floor under circumstances requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. It failed.

Help for Al Gore

The issue of Motor-Voter facilitating non-citizen voting came to a head in the historic and highly contested Election 2000.

"Did non-citizens, voting last November, influence the outcome of [Election 2000]?” asked Edward Nelson of United States Border Control. "With hundreds of thousands of non-citizens, including illegal aliens, voting throughout the country, there is no question about it.

"The election or defeat of candidates for Congress, the U.S. Senate, governors, mayors, city councilmen, and, yes, even the president of the United States was influenced dramatically by non-citizens voting illegally in U.S. elections!”

According to Nelson, Motor-Voter forced states with previously strict voter-eligibility requirements, such as Florida and Missouri, to accept anyone’s word that they were eligible to vote.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Immigration/Borders

Presidential Race 2000

War on Terrorism

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