Can Someone Prove They Are Registered To Vote

Motor vehicle departments across the land have accidentally allowed a small number of noncitizens to register to vote. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Motor vehicle departments beyond the country accept accidentally allowed a small number of noncitizens to register to vote.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Virtually five years agone, immigration attorneys started contacting Pennsylvania election officials to report that many of their clients had gone to become a driver's license and, a few weeks later, received a voter registration menu in the mail.

Sundrop Carter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, says information technology was particularly disturbing for immigrants who were trying to become citizens.

" 'I received this in the mail, I don't know why,' " she says they would tell their lawyers. " 'I didn't think I was eligible to annals to vote. Am I really? Should I go vote?' "

The reply was definitely "No." That would be illegal (noncitizens are not eligible to vote in federal elections, just a scattering of jurisdictions let them to vote in some local races).

Since 1995, federal police force has required states to offer people a chance to annals to vote when they visit a local motor vehicle office.

Just it turns out that Pennsylvania, like some other states, was request that question of anybody who applied for a commuter'south license or state ID card — even those showing green cards or other documents identifying them every bit noncitizens.

That is oft confusing for immigrants who come up in to become a commuter's license or ID, which noncitizens are eligible to do.

The issue remains a challenge for states, particularly as President Trump and other Republicans have alleged — without providing evidence — that tens of thousands, fifty-fifty millions, of noncitizens take illegally registered and voted in U.S. elections.

Texas officials recently announced that 95,000 noncitizens appeared to be on that state's voter rolls. Those numbers take since been shown to exist seriously flawed, but it hasn't stopped Trump from insisting such fraud is rampant.

While claims of massive illegal voting by noncitizens have routinely been disproved, some noncitizens accept ended up on the rolls, usually by accident.

"What is the 'vote,' what should I do?"

Immigrants similar Asife, who lived in Pennsylvania on a student visa in the early on 2000s, were confused past the process of getting a commuter's license and accidentally registered to vote. (NPR is not using his full name considering what he did was technically illegal, and he's concerned almost the repercussions in his customs.)

"When I come here, I have no English at all, similar I barely, like you know, have some words," he says.

He didn't understand what the clerk was asking him, especially because Asife came from a country where elections are seldom held.

"The guy there didn't explicate what is the 'vote,' what I should do? He merely look at the screen and he told me, 'Okay, so answer this question.' And like I have no clue," says Asife.

He signed the form and forgot nearly information technology until he applied for citizenship seven years subsequently and learned he was illegally registered to vote. Asife never actually voted and was able to get a U.South. citizen.

After hearing hundreds of like stories, Pennsylvania officials realized they had a trouble. They decided to change their system and so that one of the first questions people are asked when applying for a driver's license is "Are you a citizen?" If the answer is no, applicants are never asked whether they want to annals to vote. The forms are besides available in fourteen languages, instead of two.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, says other states also accidentally annals noncitizens. Sometimes information technology's only a misunderstanding between the motor vehicles department and election officials over whose job it is to verify citizenship.

Small numbers of votes

Becker says the number of noncitizens who finish up on the rolls is relatively small and the number who actually vote is fifty-fifty smaller. Pennsylvania officials estimated that the noncitizens they identified cast 544 votes from 2000 through 2017, out of 93 million overall votes cast.

"Again, a tiny drop in the saucepan compared to the eligible voter population, but clearly something nosotros want to avoid," says Becker.

He notes that noncitizens tin can face serious legal activity — several dozen have been prosecuted recently in N Carolina and Texas. Information technology also undermines public trust and opens the way for allegations — fifty-fifty unfounded ones — of voter fraud.

"My business organization is it risks jeopardizing confidence in the electoral process,'" California Secretary of Land Alex Padilla said last fall when it emerged that some i,500 individuals, including noncitizens, had mistakenly been registered equally part of his state's new automated voter registration law. The registrations were canceled, but it raised questions near what other mistakes had been made.

Padilla says the problem was trying to implement the new law — in which every eligible voter is registered unless they opt out — at the same time the California Department of Motor Vehicles was upgrading its entire organization.

West Virginia is now facing a similar challenge. It'due south supposed to start automated voter registration at the Division of Motor Vehicles on July 1, but both ballot and DMV officials are seeking a delay.

"You go i 24-hour interval of voter registrations not coming through, we're headline news across the nation," Donald Kersey, general counsel for the secretary of country's office, warned lawmakers earlier this calendar month.

The land'southward DMV now relies on a mainframe computer that'due south more than 26 years old and needs to be updated.

Kersey says there are already problems. Some legitimate registrations go lost, while noncitizens can go on the rolls.

"In the current system, the noncitizen can merely say, or can misunderstand, and just say yeah, 'I'm eligible. I'k a U.S. citizen, I'grand a West Virginia resident'," says Kersey. "They can, I'thou not going to say lie, but they can brand a error and say yes. And they go a voter registration card in the postal service. They probably think they're allowed to vote now. And so they become vote and they committed a crime."

Kersey says the numbers are tiny — the state is currently prosecuting only one noncitizen voter — only he says it'due south a concern when many local elections are decided by 10 votes or less. A bill to delay automatic voter registration for 2 years is making its way through the state legislature. Information technology would too ready upward a new system to aid ensure that those who do get registered are U.S. citizens.

Can Someone Prove They Are Registered To Vote,

Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/697848417/some-noncitizens-do-wind-up-registered-to-vote-but-usually-not-on-purpose

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