Pissing On The Franchise

Source: mysanantonio

Lax system allows noncitizens to vote

Luis Figueroa, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, claims MALDEF has been unable to find one confirmed instance in state records where an illegal immigrant has voted, making proposed voter identification requirements intrusive.

He argues they may even violate a person's civil rights.

In response to a public information request, however, the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute found that between 2003 and 2005, 303 noncitizens were removed from the voter rolls in Bexar County.

Before being canceled, 41 of those 303 noncitizens illegally cast ballots in bond elections, runoffs, primaries and general elections.

Similarly, Harris County Voter Registrar Paul Bettencourt testified before a congressional committee this summer that in 2005, he identified at least 35 foreign nationals who applied for or received voter registration cards. In fact, since 1992, Harris County officials have canceled 3,742 registered voters for noncitizenship. Most important, Bettencourt has records of noncitizens voting in Harris County.

Disturbingly, the noncitizens removed from the voter rolls were identified mostly because they refused jury duty by admitting they were not citizens.

At minimum, the Bexar and Harris district attorneys are obligated to investigate and possibly prosecute these proven instances of vote fraud. An applicant must attest, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen to register to vote. Clearly, that law has been violated.

But given the potentially alarming magnitude of the problem, the attorney general should be authorized to conduct a statewide investigation to determine if there is an organized effort to register noncitizens.

The reason that vote fraud is very possibly widespread is because Texas election law sets the bar for voter registration and verification far too low.

The secretary of state checks voter registration applications against drivers' license and Social Security databases. However, both Social Security numbers and drivers' licenses can be obtained by noncitizens

Furthermore, the secretary of state notes that an applicant may register even without a drivers' license or Social Security number by supplying a utility bill or pay stub. Any person, including noncitizens, can pay for electric service; any one with a green card can work and earn a paycheck. Those documents do not prove citizenship.

The secretary of state's office admits that, under existing Texas law, "there is no formal verification of an applicant's citizenship status." Instead, our voter registration system naively relies on the honesty of all participants instead of verifying citizenship.

It is a dangerous leap of faith to assume that illegal immigrants are not registering to vote or even voting, especially in light of recent reports of clear and overwhelming evidence of document fraud among illegals.

I realize a tiny percentage of our readers have sustained some sort of head trauma. And I'm waiting for these folks to make noises about "these folks being residents." Yes, they are residents, but mere residency doesn't get you the vote. This isn't apartheid, or discrimination, rather, for those who are all grown up this is called common sense. The vote is restricted to those who have first of all the legal standing to vote, and more importantly, a stake in the system.

A person who is here illegally has neither. No country in the world allows people to wander into the country and vote, again, this is for very good reasons. Dave's assertions of the invaders good intentions to the contrary I can imagine all variety of mischief that a group of non-citizens could embrace via the vote.

Like voting for Democrats!

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, voting rights, non-citizens, retarded chuckleheads, bite me