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Posted: 10/05/2016 at 6:05am
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Voters wait at a polling place in Arlington,
Virginia, to cast ballots in the state’s presidential primary March 1.
(Photo: Brian Cahn/ZumaPress/Newscom)
In only the eight that provided us with lists of
aliens recently removed from their voter rolls out of Virginia’s 133 voting
jurisdictions, we discovered that 31
noncitizens had cast a total of 186 votes between 2005 and 2015. The
most alien votes were cast in 2012 followed by 2008, the year President
Obama was elected to his first term.
More than 1,000 noncitizens registered to vote in Virginia and
cast nearly 200 ballots in elections before being purged from voter
rolls, according to a government watchdog group.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation released
its findings Tuesday from only eight of Virginia’s 133 voting
jurisdictions. So, the group suggested, the problem of noncitizen voting
could be more widespread.
Virginia is making no effort to prosecute offenders, said J.
Christian Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer who now is president
of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
“Virginia election officials don’t seem to care that thousands of
ineligible aliens have corrupted their voter rolls by illegally
registering to vote,” Adams said in a written statement. “Even worse
than doing nothing about it, they are trying to cover it up.”
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news
organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and
keep you informed.
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A total of 31 of the 1,046 registered voters who were noncitizens
voted between 2005 and 2015, casting 186 ballots, the organization
found.
Virginia has been a battleground state in recent elections. Two races
for state attorney general—in 2005 and 2013—were determined by fewer
than 1,000 votes statewide. So, voter fraud opponents argue, even a few
illegal votes can carry a lot of weight.
“Virginia
election officials don’t seem to care that thousands of ineligible
aliens have corrupted their voter rolls,” @ElectionLawCtr says.
It is a federal crime
and a violation of Virginia law for noncitizens to vote. The federal
penalty for an ineligible voter found to have cast a vote could be a
fine or imprisonment for no more than one year. Under Virginia law, it
is a Class 6 felony for an ineligible voter to vote, punishable by not less than one year of imprisonment and not more than five years.
The foundation’s report says:
In our small sample of just eight Virginia counties who
responded to our public inspection requests, we found 1,046 aliens who
registered to vote illegally.
The problem is most certainly exponentially worse because we have no
data regarding aliens on the registration rolls for the other 125
Virginia localities. Even in this small sample, when the voting history
of this small sample of alien registrants is examined, nearly 200
verified ballots were cast before they were removed from the rolls. Each
one of them is likely a felony.
The report asserts that the Virginia State Board of Elections, the
panel that oversees the state’s Department of Elections, directed local
election officials not to provide information to the legal foundation.
The Department of Elections did not respond to phone messages and email inquiries Tuesday from The Daily Signal.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation sought information from 19
cities and counties in the state, but got the data from only eight.
Prince William County had the largest number, 433, of noncitizens
purged from the rolls by election officials. Loudoun County was next at
310, followed by Stafford County with 128, the city of Alexandria with
70, Bedford County with 35, Hanover County with 28, the city of Roanoke
with 22, and the city of Fairfax with 20.
The report says:
In the eight jurisdictions that provided us with lists of
aliens recently removed from their voter rolls, we discovered that 31
noncitizens had cast a total of 186 votes between 2005 and 2015. The
most alien votes were cast in 2012 followed by 2008, the year President
Obama was elected to his first term.
The report goes on to criticize the state’s lack of verification for citizenship in voter registration:
There is plenty of blame to go around. One culprit,
however, is glaringly obvious—federal and state voter registration
forms, which ask registrants to affirm their citizenship with nothing
more than the check of a box. No documentary proof of citizenship must
be shown. It is nothing more than an honor system, one that is
unquestionably failing to keep noncitizens from voting.
Alexandria General Registrar Anna Leider, who is in charge of
elections and voter registration in the city, previously told The Daily
Signal that the city provided the Public Interest Legal Foundation with
all the information required by law. Source: The Daily Signal
Edited by News Room on 10/05/2016 at 6:14am
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