Think Your Vote Doesn’t Count? Or that Voter Fraud Does Not Matter? Al Franken “Won” By 312 Votes and Provided the 60th Vote for Obamacare

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reported this week on voter fraud, reminding us on the eve of the 2018 mid-term why American citizens, and legal immigrants waiting to become citizens, should pay attention to this issue. We must reject the dominant narrative pushed by some elected officials and the “mainstream” media that voter fraud is a “myth” embraced only by crazy right wingers. And we must reject the idea that non-citizens should be able to vote (yes, this is happening openly in America).

Preston Huenekens from CIS wrote in “Aliens and Voter Fraud” this week:

Every year there are elections that are decided by a handful of votes. This happens far more frequently than one might guess statistically. It may be unlikely that an individual’s single vote will determine the outcome of elections, but it may still add marginally to the set of votes needed to gain a majority.

The above quote comes from a piece written by the Washington Post’s Julia Maskivker arguing that we as Americans have a moral duty to vote. In the United States, only citizens can vote in federal and state elections. There are a handful of towns that allow noncitizens, including illegal aliens, to vote in local contests such as school board and municipal elections. According to 18 U.S.C. Section 611, it is illegal for anyone other than a U.S. citizen to vote. 

Here is how elected officials, in the guise of encouraging Americans to do their civic duty, long ago opened voting to fraud. No doubt that plenty of Republicans naively voted “aye.”

National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter) In an effort to encourage more Americans to register to vote, Congress and then-President Bill Clinton enacted the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in 1993. Commonly referred to as “Motor Voter”, the law mandates that “states provide individuals with the opportunity to register to vote at the same time that they apply for a driver’s license or seek to renew a driver’s license.” The law also directs states to “offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance and all offices that provide state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities.”…Since the NVRA’s passage in 1993, the number of registered voters has increased every year.

The article does not touch at all on Minnesota’s voting rules (e.g. voting without any identification, same-day registration, vouching and voter assistance rules) encourage voter fraud and make election day very stressful for all the volunteer election judges. Suffice it to say that Minnesota does not take the right of citizen-only voting seriously, and has not for years.

Certainly, the NVRA simplified the process for registering voters by allowing individuals to register when they applied for driver’s licenses. For practical reasons, states do not differentiate licenses between citizens and aliens. Plenty of legal immigrants apply for and receive licenses every day. While they have equal access to a driver’s license, legal immigrants, as non-citizens, do not have the right to vote. But due to the NVRA, almost all of them were presented the opportunity in their license application to register to vote, and many (often mistakenly) selected that they wanted to be registered to vote. This process usually involved simply checking off a box on the application, which was then sent off to the state board of elections.

Often, the fact that an individual was an alien was lost in translation, and many were mistakenly registered to vote in federal and state elections. To understand how common this mistake is, as recently as this month the California DMV discovered that 1,500 legal immigrants were registered to vote within a span of only five months…

Here is where Minnesota comes into play: Remember that Al Franken won by just 312 votes following a dramatic recount effort that revealed how flat-footed the Republicans are in the face of voter fraud, and how well-staffed the Democrats are when defending one of their candidates. How many votes were cast by people who had no right to vote? CIS has an answer.

Notable Studies and Cases: There have been a number of accounts that detail alien voting fraud and its impact on the electoral system. While this is hardly a full review of all instances, the following cases highlight the need to address alien registration and voting.

2008 Presidential Election. A 2014 article published in the journal Electoral Studies found that “non-citizen voters likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform.” The report also noted that “there is reason to believe non-citizen voting changed one state’s Electoral College votes in 2008, delivering North Carolina to Obama.”

Researchers from Old Dominion University (ODU) and George Mason University (GMU) analyzed participation rates by non-citizens using data from 2008 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies. With this data, the researchers estimated that roughly 620,000 non-citizens were registered to vote prior to the 2008 election.

The researchers focused on the North Carolina presidential tally as well as the senate race in Minnesota. By comparing non-citizen turnout to the vote margin needed to win the elections, they concluded that non-citizen voting likely won the elections for the Democratic Party candidates in both instances…They described the Minnesota senate election as one of the most important congressional races in that election cycle, given that it ensured a 60-vote filibuster-proof Democratic majority. Notably, the vote was decided by only 312 votes. Highlighting the razor-thin margin in which candidate Al Franken won, the authors wrote that “participation by more than 0.65 percent of non-citizens in MN is sufficient to account for the entirety of Franken’s margin. Our best guess is that nearly ten times as many voted.”

The findings presented in the report are alarming. The report’s allegation that major elections were decided by the votes of non-citizens is deeply troubling and an indication that something in our system needs to change to keep aliens from deciding the outcome of elections.

The article goes on to describe two reports detailing the specific instances in which aliens were registered to vote (often through checking a box at the DMV); the problem, not surprisingly, is worse in “sanctuary” cities.  According to CIS, “[b]oth reports found that it is fairly easy for non-citizen aliens to inadvertently become registered voters when they apply for driver’s licenses.”

Here’s the good (and bad) news:

In September, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy introduced House Resolution 1071. The resolution called for the recognition that “allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens.” The resolution passed with 279 votes. Incredibly though, 72 members voted against this resolution, with a further 69 voting present rather than taking a side.

Prosecuting and ending voter fraud should be a bi-partisan issue. Why would any citizen or elected official encourage an illegal alien to vote, to cancel out the vote of a family member or neighbor? Unfortunately, Democratic leaders have made a cynical strategic decision: illegal immigration and refugees are good for the party. The party no longer believes in citizenship.

Do the vast majority of Democratic voters agree with their party? I think not. That is why the Left’s “intelligentsia” works so hard to convince people this is a non-issue, or that people who bring this up are racist or xenophobic. Denying the distinct rights of citizens is one of the reason why Donald Trump got elected. Regular folks are not buying what the Left is selling.

You can read the CIS post here.