Until now, I didn’t see much reason to be concerned about the potential impact of illegal voting by non-citizens in US elections. I acknowledged that voter fraud was probably more common than we’d like to admit, but most of the brouhaha seemed to arise from isolated cases that were unlikely to have changed any outcomes. At the very worst, any allegations of voter fraud were arguably offset by allegations of voter suppression – an electoral “jump ball”, so to speak.
However, with the 2020 presidential election only eleven months away, I couldn’t ignore yesterday’s report that hundreds of non-citizens in my home state of Ohio were registered to vote and that 77 of them actually voted in the November 2018 election. https://files.constantcontact.com/b01249ec501/104a9e84-a21c-48bb-b794-c0d934d54049.pdf The report issued by Secretary of State Frank LaRose doesn’t purport to be comprehensive. All he did was cross-match the state’s voter registration database with the lists of individuals who either have an Ohio driver licenses or a state ID card. Like most states, Ohio doesn’t maintain a comprehensive database of non-citizens living within its borders. The only state records that Secretary LaRose could use were Bureau of Motor Vehicles data which happen to include the citizenship status of those who apply for driver licenses or state ID cards. From doing the cross-match, LaRose found 277 individuals who had self-identified as non-citizens on at least two occasions – once before and once after the November 2018 election. Of those, 77 actually voted.
Admittedly, seventy-seven illegal votes don’t seem like much in Nation’s seventh largest state (population – 11,689,442). After all, even George Bush’s margin of victory in Florida during the 2000 election was 537 votes. However, given that Congress is still debating the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency three years after his election, it’s hard to dismiss any evidence of voter fraud, particularly in a perennial swing state like Ohio.
2018 was a mid-term election which historically does not draw as many voters as in a presidential election year. Still, over 50% of voting age Ohioans participated last year – 4,496,834 people to be exact. In a presidential contest, voter participation is usually around 60% nationally. In 2008, it was 62%, in 2012 it was 58%, and in 2016 it was 60%. Of course, it’s important to ask “sixty percent of what number”?
Here’s where the number of non-citizens legally or illegally residing in the US becomes very important. The number of voting age non-citizens living in a particular state is almost impossible to determine. Estimates ranging from 11 to 40 million are often reported depending on the bias of the source, but they don’t account for whether, apart from citizenship, any of these people would otherwise satisfy a state’s qualifications to vote (age, length of residency, criminal history, etc.). The best I could come up with are 2010 Census estimates of foreign-born persons who have been naturalized (which I will presume makes them citizens eligible to vote). According to that data, 56% of the 40 million or so foreign-born people residing in the US in 2010 were not citizens. US Census Bureau Report ACS-19 (May 2012). For those of you who, like me, thought the Census Bureau wasn’t allowed to ask about citizenship, I learned that this data point was extrapolated from the American Community Survey, which did collect such information – at least in 2010.
So, if there are about 22.4 million non-citizens who could otherwise satisfy a state’s voting eligibility requirements, might they be tempted to vote, particularly if they have a state-issued driver license or ID card? In fact, that’s precisely what the Cleveland Plain Dealer claims happened in the case of the 77 people who illegally voted in Ohio’s 2018 elections. https://www.cleveland.com/open/2019/12/ohio-secretary-of-state-77-non-citizens-voted-in-november-election.html Plain Dealer reporter Andrew Tobias stated that “generally, non-citizens who register to vote or even vote do so mistakenly, not understanding the laws around voting.”
Should American citizens shrug off knowing that some foreigners vote in our elections by mistake? I think not.
This is why I now believe the risk of having our elections determined by foreign voters (intentionally or unintentionally) is much greater than the impact of any meddling on the part of a foreign government or other malevolent actor.
One reason why Secretary LaRose could only find 77 foreigners who voted in Ohio’s November 2018 elections may be the relatively small percentage of non-citizens living in my state – about 2% or 234,000 people. It’s much greater in other states like California (14.1%), Texas (10.9%), and New York (10.5%). You might argue those are traditionally not “swing states”, but what about Florida (9.5%), Nevada (11.6%), Arizona (8.3%), Colorado (6.1%), Virginia (6.0%), and North Carolina (5.1%)? All of them will play large roles in determining the outcome of the next presidential election, and they all have large or growing populations. If among the 2 million or so non-citizens living legally in Florida just 537 of them were enticed to vote next November, could we be faced with another electoral nightmare like the one we experienced in 2000?
Lest some of your reading this think I’m against foreign born, non-citizens legally living in the US and doing what it takes to become American citizens, allow me to introduce you to Silvia. She was born in Mexico but has been living and working in the US for many years as a Green Card holder. Her daughters are American citizens by virtue of being born here and they all have attended American schools. One is pre-med at a Florida university. For the past few years, Silvia has faithfully served as my parents’ personal aide in their home. Recently, she applied for US citizenship with the help of my family.
It is my sincere desire to see Silvia become an American citizen so she can vote next November. About 100 years ago that would have been my grandparents’ naturalization story.
Be First to Comment