Nov 3, 2014
With control of the Senate up for grabs and House leaning GOP the balance of powers maybe shifting right, but what will it take for candidates to secure victory? The answer may lie in the fastest growing voting block—Hispanics. But getting them to vote in the midterms hinges on six years of broken immigration promises by the White House.
With a lower turnout expected, many political party-affiliated groups are creatively signing up potential voters, including non-citizens. Democrats argue that incidents of voting by non-citizens are inconsequential, and efforts to require an ID will only disenfranchise poor and minority voters. Republican’s suggest it’s a fundamental right of a representative democracy to ensure election integrity by providing some form of identification before heading into the voting booth.
Watch Kimberly’s One America News TV segment here
Watch Kimberly’s San Diego 6 TV segment here
While the numbers of non-citizens casting a vote seem small, this year many competitive races will be decided by razor thin margins. According to a Cooperative Congressional Election Survey study more than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote and illegally cast a ballot.
The Washington Post scoured the report’s data and extrapolated “that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010.” With so many pivotal Senate races too close to call, the 2.2 percent illegal voter could directly change the landscape of the House and the Senate.
Even the National Council of La Raza is using its substantial social media followers to promote voting in states that do not require an identification to vote. Plus a Harvard study found that “illegal immigrants have almost certainly swung close elections in recent years by canceling out some U.S. citizens’ votes.”
Organizations in multiple states have uncovered substantial wrongful registration of non-citizens. A watchdog group in Maryland uncovered a staggering 40,000 non-citizens were registered in its state as well as Virginia. The Watchdog group is suing Maryland to remove the illegal voters.
Virginia Voters Alliance has followed suit and pointed out the discrepancy by using jury duty statements. According to a PJ Media story the Virginia Voters Alliance, “compared how voters in Frederick County filled out jury duty statements compared with their voting records. The group’s investigation found that thousands of people in Frederick County who stated that they are not U.S. citizens on jury duty forms went on to cast votes in elections. Either they failed to tell the truth when they were summoned for jury duty, or they cast illegal votes. Both are crimes.
“The same group previously reported that about 40,000 people are registered to vote in both Virginia and Maryland. Maryland state law makes it easier for non-citizens, both those present legally and those in the country against the law, to vote. Maryland issues drivers licenses to legal and illegal aliens. Driver’s licenses in turn make it easier under the Motor Voter law to register to vote. Maryland also offers copious taxpayer-funded social programs to non-citizens in the state. The purpose of the investigation by a special state prosecutor is to delve more deeply into statewide practices and determine why this fraud or any other related violations were allowed to occur.” The group filed suit in Baltimore’s U.S. District Court on Friday and hopes the court will move quickly.
One of the country’s hotly contested Senate races involves North Carolina’s Democrat incumbent Kay Hagan and Republican newcomer Thom Tillis. The competitive race remains too close to call and could tip the power in Washington DC. According to the Washington Post story, the 2.2 percent of non-citizen votes could be exactly what Ms. Hagan needs to retain her seat in Congress. With this in mind the North Carolina group NCFIRE, worked with the Voter Integrity Project to sniff out the truth about registered voters in its state.
Like Maryland and Virginia, North Carolina voting rolls revealed more than 17,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in the up coming elections.
So why do many Democratic operatives scream “racism” or “poll taxing the poor” when state legislatures require identification at polling stations? They claim that poorer and minority voters see it as disenfranchisement and many do not have identification or the means to obtain a legal ID.
However, that argument falls flat on its face when Americans consider everyday errands requiring proof of identity. For example, try cashing a check at a bank or using a check without an ID, buying alcohol, cigarettes, over-the-counter Sudafed, entering a federal building or traveling by plane. All require an identification for various reasons, none of which is to depress low-income citizens.
Voting in America is a cornerstone of its representative government and something for which our military services have fought and died to establish in the Middle East. The new government in Afghanistan takes voter fraud so seriously that it requires voters to dip their fingers in blue dye to prevent multiple voting.
Something else to take into account is the U.S.’s staunch protection of voting rights when it comes to criminal behavior. Many U.S. and state felony convictions include the revocation of the right to vote. Consider the fact that ex-criminals must fight and jump through a number of hoops to regain the “privilege” to vote. This fact alone should give every politician pause and demand the integrity of future elections are above reproach.
It’s important to remember that many non-citizens are in the country legally. They have green cards, student visas and yet many of these legal residents are registering to vote and accepting jury duty – both are against the law. So how is it that this demographic group skirts the law? Many may be doing it inadvertently. In a number of states, legislatures have passed laws giving the DMV the ability to register voters as well as passing along the information to the judicial branch to send out jury duty notices. Perhaps stricter Department of Motor Vehicles regulations are in order.
Another misconstrued voting fact lies in identification itself. Just because a U.S. resident possesses a drivers’ license, does not mean they are citizens entitled to all the privileges that go along with U.S. citizenship. Perhaps a pubic relations campaign is in order to educate the masses.
Finally, there have been a number of electronic voting machines that have misfired and changed votes from one political party to another.
“When I first selected my candidate on the electronic machine, it would not put the ‘x’ on the candidate I chose — a Republican — but it would put the ‘x’ on the Democrat candidate above it,” said Donna Hamilton, who voted at the Frederick County Center, Watchdog.org reported. “This happened multiple times with multiple selections. Every time my choice flipped from Republican to Democrat. Sometimes it required four or five tries to get the ‘x’ to stay on my real selection.”
Likewise, in Cook County Illinois, which includes Chicago: “While early voting at the Schaumburg Public Library today, I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Jim Moynihan said on his Twitter feed. “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.”
The steady stream of “calibration” issues has prompted multiple states to pull electronic voting machines altogether and approximately 70 percent of voters will cast a paper ballot for Tuesday’s midterm elections.
With control of the Congress on the line, the integrity of the voter rolls could be the dark horse that may or may not upset the balance of power.
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