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THE PRESIDENT’S EXECUTIVE ACTIONS ON IMMIGRATION AND THEIR IMPACT ON FEDERAL 

AND STATE ELECTIONS 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY 

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH CARE, 

BENEFITS AND ADMINISTRATIVE RULES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 12, 2015 

Serial No. 114–5 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DeSAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Staff Director 

ART ARTHUR, Staff Director, Subcommittee on National Security 

SANG YI, Professional Staff Member 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 
(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

RON DESANTIS JR Florida, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. Tennessee 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma, Vice Chair 

WILL HURD, Texas 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, 

Ranking Member 

TED LIEU, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH CARE, BENEFITS AND ADMINISTRATIVE RULES

JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chairman 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan, 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina, Vice 

Chair 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

JODY B, HICE, Georgia 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania, 

Ranking Member 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on February 12, 2015 ....................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 00 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00 

The Hon. Kris Kobach, Kansas Secetary of State 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 00 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00 

The Hon. Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Center 

for Legal and Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 00 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00 

The Hon. Matthew Dunlap, Maine Secretary of State 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 00 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00 

APPENDIX 

2015–02–12 Rep. Castro Statement ....................................................................... 00 

2015–02–12 Rep. Fudge Statement ........................................................................ 00 

2015–01–27 Letter from OH Sec. of State Jon Husted to President Obama ...... 00 

Kansas Voter Registration Form ............................................................................ 00 

Ohio Voter Registration Form ................................................................................ 00 

Maine Voter Registration Form .............................................................................. 00 

2008–08–20 The Myth of Widespread Non-Citizen Voting .................................. 00 

(1) 

THE PRESIDENT’S EXECUTIVE ACTIONS ON 

IMMIGRATION AND THEIR IMPACT ON FEDERAL AND STATE ELECTIONS 

Thursday, February 12, 2015, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, JOINT WITH THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH CARE, BENEFITS AND

ADMINISTRATIVE RULES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Ron DeSantis 

[chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security] presiding. 

Present from Subcommittee on National Security: Representatives DeSantis, Hice, Duncan, Lynch, Kelly, and Lieu. 

Present from Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules: Representatives Jordan, Carter, Hice, Meadows, Walker, DeSantis, Walberg, Watson Coleman, Norton, and 

DeSaulnier. 

Also present: Representatives Chaffetz and Castro. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The subcommittee will come to order. 

Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at 

any time. 

We are a government of, by, and for the American people. This 

means that the American people can, through their elected representatives, set whatever policies, including immigration policy, 

they see fit. The law can allow for unlimited immigration, limited 

immigration, or even zero immigration. But when the Government 

fails to enforce whatever laws happen to be on the books, it undermines our ability to govern ourselves. 

Likewise, when the President issued his executive edict granting 

five million work permits and Social Security numbers for individuals illegally present in our Country, which, by the way, will also 

make these individuals eligible for taxpayer finance welfare payments, he harmed the American people’s ability to govern themselves. After all, the American people never voted for such a policy. 

Indeed, the stinging rebuke delivered to the President’s party in 

November, if anything, provided evidence that the public rejected 

what the President had long been threatening to do. 

Under the President’s policy, U.S. workers will face a $3,000 hiring disadvantage due to the Affordable Care Act. The American 

people had no say in enacting such a policy. Legal immigrants will 

see the hefty application fees they must pay to be diverted to ad-
2 

minister the President’s unconstitutional program, which will make 

these legal immigrants wait longer. The American people never approved such unfairness. 

Taxpayers will be on the hook to pay, as Commissioner John 

Koskinen said just yesterday, retroactive tax credit payments to 

people who were working in our Country illegally for years. The 

American taxpayer was never given a voice about this. 

So the President’s policy undermines our basic ability to govern 

ourselves. And the reason we are having this hearing today is to 

showcase an even more significant, perhaps, ramification of what 

the President has done, a ramification that could undermine the integrity of our elections. 

Through the President’s executive actions, millions of non-citizens will be able to obtain valid Social Security numbers and State 

driver’s licenses. Under Federal law, any person with a valid Social 

Security number or driver’s license can register to vote as long as 

he attests to his eligibility to do so. Therefore, the President’s executive actions dramatically increase the risk that non-citizens may 

illegally register to vote. 

Now, the problem of non-citizens voting already exists. Some experts have found that thousands of non-citizens may be registered 

to vote in some States, and perhaps as many as tens of thousands 

nationwide. A study that was released last year found that some 

non-citizens do participate in U.S. elections and that this participation has already had a meaningful effect in election outcomes, including electoral college votes and congressional elections. 

The President’s executive actions make this problem of non-citizen voting worse without offering any solutions or assistance to 

the States. Non-citizen voting undermines voter confidence and 

damages the integrity of Federal elections. And make no mistake, 

as an elected official, I don’t want my vote totals diminished because of a non-citizen to vote, but I also don’t want them to be enhanced, either. I want the actual voice of the American people to 

carry the day. 

Today we will hear from secretaries of State, officials tasked with 

the responsibility of administering elections in their States. They 

will testify how the President’s executive actions will affect their 

voter registration rolls and their elections in their States. In fact, 

one of our witnesses today, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, 

wrote to President Obama about this very issue. He requested his 

Administration to ‘‘work with us to minimize the impact on the integrity of our elections and to ensure only eligible voters participate 

in State and Federal elections.’’ 

We will also hear from an expert on voter fraud and voting rights 

laws issues to help us understand the consequences of the President’s executive actions. 

Today’s hearing is about upholding the integrity of our elections 

and ensuring that every American’s vote counts. 

This is the first hearing that we have had on the Subcommittee 

on National Security, but it is a joint hearing with my friend, Jim 

Jordan. But I did want to recognize the ranking member on our 

National Security Subcommittee, Stephen Lynch, from the frozen 

tundra of Boston. 
3 

I am happy to work with you, Stephen, although I am jealous. 

Coming from Boston, you guys four Super Bowls in the last 15 

years, three World Series. We don’t get that much love in Florida. 

With that, I will recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I appreciate the congratulations and the condolences for the weather. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and I also want to thank our 

panel of witnesses that have come forward to help the committee 

with its work. 

While I do share President Obama’s frustration with the inability 

of Congress to produce a balanced and sustainable immigration policy, I do have some lingering concerns about the precedence set by 

the President’s executive actions on immigration, especially when 

it comes to other major issues that a future Congress may struggle 

to address. That is why I continue to welcome the opportunity as 

a direct representative of my constituents to consider and debate 

our Nation’s immigration policy on its merits. 

Regrettably, the looming February 27 deadline to avoid a shutdown of the entire Department of Homeland Security demonstrates 

that some Members of Congress have chosen a more drastic route 

in response to the President’s executive action. In particular, Republican leadership is attempting, I think, to condition our Nation’s 

continued anti-terrorism, border enforcement, and cybersecurity 

funding on reversing the President’s immigration orders. And I am 

not sure, but to is a partial Government shutdown and furloughing 

of approximately 30,000 dedicated Homeland Security employees 

an appropriate response to the President’s executive orders? I am 

not so sure that it is. 

Similarly, today’s hearing now attempts to tie the debate over 

the President’s executive action to a different and unrelated issue, 

I think, the misguided, at times, premise that the President’s immigration orders pose a threat of voter fraud by non-citizens who 

will somehow hijack the election process and thereby threaten our 

national security. 

The rights of citizens in this Country to vote is one of the most 

basic tenets of who we are as a people and is a cornerstone of our 

democratic system that must be protected. However, the threat we 

are here to discuss today is virtually nonexistent if you look at the 

legal and electoral evidence. 

Non-citizen voter fraud is not, in fact, an active or present threat 

to our national security. None of the President’s executive actions 

on immigration launch voter fraud into the realm of a clear and 

present danger or national security concern. 

The truth is the President’s actions leave State and Federal voting requirements untouched. I want to repeat that. The President’s 

actions leave State and Federal voting requirements untouched. 

They do not change Federal elections law and they leave State elections laws unaltered. 

Nevertheless, it appears that we are here today to discuss voter 

fraud, especially by non-citizens present in the Country. 

I understand some of our witnesses have expressed concerns to 

the contrary; however, it simply does not seem plausible that immigrants who apply for deferred action will then choose to ignore Federal and State laws prominently displayed on voter registration 
4 

forms and then fraudulently attest to being a U.S. citizen just so 

they can illegally register to vote. 

When you look at the penalties that would be on an individual 

in that case, that might have received a deferred status and is allowed to come to the Country, that they would risk all of that to 

vote in an election where only 30 or 40 percent of our own citizens, 

without penalty, choose to vote in those elections, it just strains the 

realm of credibility. 

Further, this argument presumes that these people will then 

fraudulently vote en masse in order to affect the outcomes of elections in swing States, even though this means that under the immigration law they will be deemed ineligible for admission to the 

U.S. or other immigration benefits, the very kinds of benefits these 

people are seeking in the first place. 

To fraudulently vote, non-citizens would have to ignore every 

real consequence of voter fraud, such as being deported if discovered. And yet some of my colleagues claim that we should be worried about a flood of these instances. 

I looked at the numbers, thinking that perhaps despite all the 

protections in place, this is a widespread problem. But studies and 

investigations have shown that non-citizen voter fraud makes up 

.00003 percent, the tiniest percentage of votes cast in this Country. 

Just to cite a few examples, only 17 instances of non-citizen voter 

fraud, again, .0003 percent of the total votes cast were found 

through Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s own investigation, 

and he is here to testify today, of the 2012 general elections. 

Additionally, in a State legislative hearing on the issue in Kansas last year, Secretary of State Kobach, again a guest of us this 

morning, could only cite 20 non-citizen registrants in the whole 

State. And out of the 20 non-citizens who were registered, only 5 

actually voted, so they are having the same problem with non-citizens voting as we are with citizens actually coming to vote. 

So, again, I am disappointed that we are here today spending our 

valuable time and resources on unfounded concerns, because there 

are some real concerns out there. I realize that the President’s executive orders have spurred extremely polarizing conversations in 

Congress, but as the ranking member of the National Security Subcommittee, I hope I can work with you, Mr. Chairman, to refocus 

on our efforts on some of the very real issues that we face moving 

forward. 

Again, I want to thank the panelists for taking the time from 

their important responsibilities to testify today, and I especially 

look forward to hearing more about what we are doing to protect 

the rights of eligible voters in our States and getting the 60 to 70 

percent of voters who are legal citizens of this Country but who 

don’t choose to vote. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The vote clock, it looks like we have about 4 minutes left on the vote tally. I wanted to get Mr. Jordan’s opening 

Statement, but I think it would be prudent just to recess the hearing now. When we return, Mr. Jordan will give his Statement, Ms. 

Norton will give hers, the witnesses will give theirs, and then the 

members will be able to ask some questions. 

So we stand in recess until the conclusion of this first vote series. 
5 

[Recess.] 

Mr. DESANTIS. Before I recognize my colleague, Chairman Jordan, I ask unanimous concern that our colleague from the 20th 

District of Texas, Congressman Joaquin Castro, be allowed to fully 

participate in today’s hearing. Without objection, so ordered. 

I now recognize Mr. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Subcommittee 

on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules for his opening 

Statement. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chairman. 

In the previous, Mr. Lynch, the ranking member, talked about 

just 20 non-citizens on the voter rolls in Kansas, I think was the 

example. If it’s one, that is a problem. And the issue today is there 

is potentially five million more potential problems. 

So let’s remember what got us here. Twenty-two times the President said he couldn’t do what he turned around and did. His actions violated the rule of law and the United States Constitution. 

You don’t have to take my word for it; we have all kinds of law 

professors who say what he did was unlawful and a violation of the 

Constitution. And not just any law professors, all kinds of liberal 

law professors said that. 

But the point is also it is not just the unconstitutional action the 

President took last November; it is the unfairness of that action. 

As the chairman pointed out in his opening Statement, is it fair to 

seniors that non-citizens are going to get Social Security benefits? 

Is it fair to taxpayers that non-citizens are going to get tax refunds? Is it fair to legal immigrants that non-citizens, illegals, are 

going to get moved to the front of the line and slow down the legal 

immigrants from getting the status they deserve? And is it fair 

that now there is the potential for non-citizens to participate in our 

elections? 

Those are the issues and that is why we are having this hearing, 

and that is why I want to welcome our panel. I particularly want 

to welcome Jon Husted, our Secretary of State, who has done an 

outstanding job in a State that is always the center of the universe 

every 4 years in Presidential elections, and just done a commendable job in his work running the elections in our State. 

Seven Democrats, Mr. Chairman, seven Democrats in the U.S. 

Senate, if they would just do what they said should be done last 

November. Last November, when the President did his violation of 

the rule of law, violation of the Constitution, executive amnesty 

order, seven Senate Democrats said it was wrong. If they would 

just vote to allow our bill to come up for debate. They can amend 

it, they can try to change it; that is how the process works. They 

won’t even let it come up. If seven Democrats would just do what 

they said last year should be done, we could get this Department 

of Homeland Security funded and we could stop the unconstitutional action of the President. 

And I again want to thank our panel for being here and highlighting one of the real concerns that exist because of what the 

President did. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back. 
6 

The chair now recognizes Ms. Norton, Ranking Member of the 

Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules, 

for her opening Statement. 

Ms. NORTON. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I am here for 

the ranking member. I am a member of the full committee and a 

member of this subcommittee, but I want to express my condolences to the chair of this committee, Matt Cartwright, whose father passed and who, therefore, cannot be here today. I know our 

thoughts and prayers are with Representative Cartwright. 

This hearing on immigration fraud by non-citizens would be 

laughable if the subject were not so serious. Latino and other people of color and other immigrants will not regard it as very funny. 

They will be particularly insulted by this faux hearing on a nonexistent issue, and they will be joined by countless of other Americans. 

I quote from the testimony, which I will ask to be included in the 

record, of the Ohio State NAACP. As they say in their testimony, 

‘‘Voter fraud has not been perpetuated by immigrants, nor have 

they been exacerbated by changes in national immigration policies. 

Rather, we have spent 106 years battling voting fraud, which was 

perpetuated primarily by election officials who refused to register 

voters because of what they look like or whose purges appear to be 

concentrated among certain demographics.’’ 

This hearing, coming as it does on the 50th anniversary of the 

Voting Rights Act, when Republicans and Democrats are about to 

go to Selma to commemorate that Act in March, comes close to an 

insult, and this is particularly so when the Majority has announced, indeed, announced early, that the House will not even 

have a hearing on the Voting Rights Act. 

I want to take a moment to thank Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, and Representative John Lewis, 

Democrat of Georgia and a hero of the civil rights movement, for 

their co-sponsorship of a bill to update the Voting Rights Act of 

1965, as instructed by the Supreme Court of the United States. 

It takes chutzpah, or disregard, or even disrespect, to hold a 

hearing alleging fraud by Latino and other immigrants. What have 

they received? Only the rudimentary right, the temporary permission to remain in this Country to work, unrelated entirely, of 

course, as the Majority knows, to the right to vote. The data about 

fraud is manifestly and overwhelmingly in the other direction. We 

should be glad that there is something in this Country that you 

don’t have to have a hearing about. 

It took minority Americans 150 years after the Civil War to get 

the same right to vote that other Americans took for granted and 

often don’t even exercise. A couple of years ago the Supreme Court 

did not nullify the Voting Rights Act, but they did ask this Congress to update it. Instead, we see States covered by the Act already passing laws designed to keep black people and Hispanics 

from voting, manifestly so, and we see Republicans in the rest of 

the Country spreading barriers, including Ohio, where we have a 

witness today and one of the States involved. 

The President’s executive order gives immigrants the right to 

stay; immigrants who have been here for years; immigrants who 

have been working hard and whose labor we have needed. Even 
7 

the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed by the Senate last 

Congress would have postponed the right to vote for immigrants for 

more than a decade. 

The Republicans may want to go down in history as the party 

who tried once again, 100 years later, to nullify the right to vote. 

Well, I am here today to say they shall not succeed. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

I will hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written Statement. 

We will now recognize our first panel of witnesses. I am pleased 

to welcome the Honorable Jon Husted, Secretary of State for the 

State of Ohio; the Honorable Kris Kobach, Secretary of State for 

the State of Kansas; The Honorable Hans von Spakovsky, Senior 

Legal Fellow at the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial 

Studies at The Heritage Foundation; and the Honorable Matthew 

Dunlap, Secretary of State for the State of Maine. Welcome all. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify, so please rise and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Mr. DESANTIS. All witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank 

you. Please be seated. 

In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your testimony 

to 5 minutes. Your entire written Statement will be made a part 

of the record. 

With that, Mr. Husted, you are up. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JON HUSTED 

Mr. HUSTED. Thank you, Chairman DeSantis and Ranking Member Lynch and the members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the 

opportunity to be here today. My name is Jon Husted. I am the 

Ohio Secretary of State, and in that capacity I serve as our State’s 

chief election official. I am here to proactively address what I believe is an important issue facing my State and the Nation regarding the integrity of our elections. 

As the chief elections official in a key swing State, I have tried 

to build an election system where it is easy to vote and hard to 

cheat. We have done this by ensuring easy access to the voting 

process and by working to ensure that only eligible voters are on 

the voting rolls. I want to bring to your attention my concern that 

the President’s recent immigration accountability executive actions 

will make it more difficult for elections officials to determine if all 

voters meet the primary standard for voting, which is U.S. citizenship. 

I am not here to debate immigration policy or the President’s executive actions. However, I am here to emphatically say that we 

cannot follow both the Federal law and the executive action and 

ensure the integrity of the elections process without further assist-
8 

ance from Congress or from the Obama Administration. Let me 

briefly explain why. 

For an estimated four to five million non-citizens, the President’s 

executive actions provide access to Social Security numbers and 

driver’s licenses. These are the same documents that Federal law 

requires the States to recognize as valid forms of identification for 

voter registration. Under Federal law, anyone with a valid Social 

Security number or driver’s license number can register to vote 

provided they attest they are a U.S. citizen. However, there is no 

way for us to validate this citizenship Statement since, under the 

executive actions previously, undocumented non-citizens will have 

access to the same documents as U.S. citizens. 

This issue becomes especially complicated in States like Ohio, 

where millions of dollars are spent on third-party voter registration 

drives where no election official would be present to make clear the 

eligibility requirements for voting. By signing the voter registration 

form and asserting citizenship falsely or erroneously, non-citizens 

could face real legal consequences. In Ohio, falsification is a fifth 

degree felony. This could affect their ability to remain in the 

United States and to become citizens. 

Let me interject some perspective before I go further. It is not 

my belief that four to five million non-citizens are going to get on 

the voting rolls. Nor is it my belief that third-party registration 

drive organizers are waiting to exploit this loophole in law. While 

I am committed to ensuring the security and the integrity of the 

elections in Ohio and throughout the Country, it is important for 

us to recognize that people can sometimes sign documents, in this 

case a voter registration form, without fully comprehending the 

rules and requirements. 

Acknowledging that I do not expect this to be a systemic or widespread problem, we also cannot ignore that there are real electoral 

consequences. Presidential elections get most of the attention, but 

every year there are thousands of State and local elections in Ohio, 

and in the last 15 months alone 70 elections in our State were decided by one vote or tied. Seventy elections were decided by one 

vote or tied. These were mayoral elections, school and tax levies, 

bond issues, members of city councils, township trustees, and 

school boards. 

In light of these examples alone, we simply cannot overlook policies that may allow ineligible voters to cast ballots. We want to 

find the least intrusive solution to closing this loophole without 

making it unnecessarily difficult to register to vote. 

While opinions may vary on the best solution for this issue, one 

thing is clear: we cannot solve this Federal problem solely at the 

State level alone. 

In a letter to President Obama on January the 27th, I asked that 

his Administration provide election officials with realtime access to 

accurate searchable electronic data bases of non-citizens who have 

valid Social Security numbers. This would enable me and my counterparts in other States to prevent illegal registrations and, more 

importantly, reassure the public that steps have been taken to ensure only eligible voters are participating in Federal, State, and 

local elections. 
9 

In Ohio we are what we can to prevent non-citizen registrations 

in voting. We electronically share data between the State’s Bureau 

of Motor Vehicles and our county boards of elections which process 

voter registrations. This partnership and the data provided allow 

my office to conduct a review of Ohio’s voter rolls to determine if, 

through the use of a driver’s license, non-citizens were registered 

to vote in Ohio. 

Following the 2012 Presidential election, we found through this 

information that 291 non-citizens were registered to vote and 17 

had actually cast ballots. Those 17 were referred for further investigation and prosecution, and my office sent letters to the other 274 

to cancel their voter registrations. 

However, without Federal assistance, we cannot perform the 

same cross-match with registrations using Social Security numbers. 

As a result, these executive actions could significantly increase the 

potential pool of illegal registrations in Ohio and around the Country. 

It is also important to note that Federal law limits the ways 

States can maintain their voter rolls, in some cases prohibiting 

States from removing a voter from the rolls until they have been 

inactive for two consecutive Federal general elections. That means 

that when evidence suggests a person is a non-citizen on the rolls, 

we cannot remove them immediately; they have to remove themselves. This makes it especially important that we prevent an ineligible voter from getting on the rolls in the first place. 

As I Stated earlier, my focus as the chief elections official in Ohio 

is to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. The debate over voter 

fraud and voter suppression already breeds significant hyperbole 

from across the political spectrum that erodes public confidence. In 

this environment, administering elections fairly and accurately becomes more difficult when the path exists where millions more noncitizens can register to vote in elections and elections officials have 

no way to identify these individuals. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Husted follows:] 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Husted. Your time has expired. 

We are going to take your Statement, it will be entered in the 

record, and you will have the ability to expand on some of that 

with our questions. 

The chair now recognizes Secretary Kobach for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KRIS KOBACH 

Mr. KOBACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

committee. I come to you chiefly in my capacity as Kansas’s Secretary of State, but also in my private capacity I am the lead attorney representing 10 ICE agents who sued the Secretary of Homeland Security in the case of Crane vs. Napolitano, now Crane vs. 

Johnson. The District Court in Texas ruled that the President’s 

first executive amnesty violates Federal law at 8 U.S.C. 

1225(b)(2)(A) by ordering ICE agents to refrain from placing into 

removal proceedings aliens who are required to be placed into removal proceedings by Federal law. 

I mention this because it is problematic for so many legal reasons what this executive amnesty has done. But let’s talk a little 

bit about the voter fraud that we have observed empirically in the 

State of Kansas. 

At the outset, it is important to note that four States, Kansas, 

Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama, require proof of citizenship, documentary proof of citizenship when the person registers. In the 

other 46 States they are exceedingly vulnerable to what this executive amnesty has done, but even in those four States, because of 

the recent decision of the Election Assistance Commission, a board 

that is not supposed to have any policymaking authority, people 

can use the Federal form to circumvent our proof of citizenship requirement in those four States. 

I want to give you a few examples of aliens being registered and 

voting illegally in the State of Kansas. The most notorious case was 

in Seward County, in southwest Kansas, in 1997. There was a 

county issue on the ballot whether or not to prohibit a certain kind 

of hog farming operation. Across the border, in Guymon, Oklahoma, there was a processing plant where they hoped to render the 

hogs that were raised in Kansas. 

Shortly before election day, according to the testimony of the 

county clerk of Seward County, an envelope arrived with about 50 

registration cards from employees at the hog processing plant in 

Oklahoma giving, in many cases, fictitious addresses in Kansas 

and asking to be registered in Kansas. She knew, based on her own 

personal knowledge of some of the individuals and in subsequent 

observations, that many, if not, most of these were not U.S. citizens, and also based on her knowledge of the composition of the 

plant employee base. But she was powerless at that time to do anything about it. 

They were registered and on election day many van load after 

many van load of employees at the Guymon plant in Oklahoma 

came north and voted in Kansas to try to steal that election. Fortunately, it was a very high election turnout; it was a very contentious issue. Fifty-one percent turned out and the illegal votes did 

not prevail and sway and overcome the votes of the U.S. citizens. 
15 

I want to give you another example. In August 2010, across the 

river from where I live, I am in Kansas City, Kansas, in North 

Kansas City, Missouri, this one has been widely reported in the 

press, August primary in a district for a State representative seat 

between Rizzo and Royster. According to the sworn testimony of 

poll workers, and I have attached one of those to my written testimony, they observed approximately 50 Somali nationals who were 

brought in by a coach and the ballot was translated for those individuals. They were instructed to vote for Mr. Rizzo and in that case 

Mr. Rizzo won the election by one vote. Successful use of aliens to 

steal an election. 

Again, it occurs typically in smaller elections, not so much in 

mass, nationwide elections. 

I give you another example in my testimony of 20 aliens in Kansas. Now, it was mentioned in some of the opening remarks that, 

well, that 20 is not very much. Well, those 20 are the ones where 

we know the exact name of the alien and we presented those to 

Federal District Court in a separate litigation. We know of many 

others, including the 50 in Seward County, but we don’t have the 

exact names. 

And this illustrates a problem. Once the alien gets on the voter 

rolls, there is no magical way you can say that must be an alien 

or that must be an alien. You cannot identify them once they are 

on, except for very limited ways, such as using your driver’s license 

data base to cross-match in those limited cases where the driver’s 

license indicates that it is an alien and not a citizen. So this is an 

irreversible consequence. Once these individuals get on the voter 

rolls, you are not going to get them off except in very, very rare 

circumstances. 

Now, I want to talk a little bit about how the President’s directive actually exacerbates the problem. In many States these aliens 

will get a driver’s license once they have an employment authorization document. Some States, like Wisconsin, State law requires it 

to be issued. In all of the 10 States of the Ninth Circuit now, they 

will have to give these individuals driver’s licenses. That comes out 

of a decision that the Ninth Circuit rendered last year. So that does 

change things. 

Five point eight million illegal aliens who previously did not have 

a driver’s license now have the ability to get one, and they certainly have the ability to get a Social Security number, which will 

in turn allow them to register to vote. If these aliens in Kansas, 

or in Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, even our States where you have 

proof of citizenship, if they use the Federal form, they can register 

to vote. 

This is a problem. These consequences are irreversible. And we 

are trying to fight this in the courts, but the courts are taking a 

long time to hear these issues, even though they have, to date, 

agreed with our position that it is illegal and it is a problem. The 

consequences are not imaginary, the numbers are real, and we 

need your help in dealing with it. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Kobach follows:] 
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Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. von Spakovsky for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HANS VON SPAKOVSKY 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The U.S. already has a problem with non-citizens being able to 

easily register and vote with little chance of detection or even prosecution. There have been numerous such cases from Florida to Virginia to Ohio to California. These ineligible voters could make the 

difference in a close election. Let me just give you a few examples. 

In 2010, a Florida immigration judge issued an order in a removal case for a Cuban citizen who entered Miami in 2004. She 

voted in the November 2004 election. This was not detected by 

local election officials; it only came to light because she applied for 

a change in immigration status. She initially lied about voting, but 

admitted it after DHS uncovered it in a check of local voter registration records. If she had not tried to change her immigration 

status, she could have easily continued to vote illegally, without detection. 

This is not an isolated case. In 2005, a GAO report said that it 

found that 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty 

from voter registration rolls over a 2-year period in just one United 

States district court were not U.S. citizens. Now, that may not 

seem like many, but 3 percent of registered voters would have been 

more than enough to provide the winning margin in Florida in 

2000. 

In just one 3-year period, from 2002 to 2005, the U.S. Justice Department prosecuted a dozen non-citizens for registering and voting 

in Florida, including a non-citizen who had been a candidate for 

the State legislature. These cases were discovered accidentally, not 

through any systemic review of election records. 

The current Justice Department is not interested in enforcing 

these laws. In 2011, when I was a member of the Fairfax County 

electoral board in Virginia, we discovered 278 individuals who had 

registered to vote, despite Virginia DMV records showing they were 

not U.S. citizens; 117 of them had voted. We provided that information to the Justice Department; no action was taken to investigate 

or prosecute these cases. 

A voter registration card is an easily obtainable document that 

an illegal alien can use for many different purposes. Federal law 

requires employers to verify the identity of new employees. The 

Federal I–9 Form provides a list of documentation that can be used 

to establish identity, including a voter registration card. 

A Federal grand jury in 1984 found large numbers of aliens registered in Chicago. The grand jury reported that aliens ‘‘register to 

vote so they can obtain documents identifying them as U.S. citizens 

and have used their voter cards to obtain a myriad of benefits, from 

Social Security to jobs with the Defense Department.’’ 

Now, Federal immigration law requires DHS to ‘‘respond to any 

inquiry by a Federal, State, or local government agency seeking to 

verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual. However, it is only since Florida successfully sued DHS, 
23 

in 2012, over its refusal to verify citizenship data for election officials that the Government has finally started working with State 

election officials and given them limited access to the Systematic 

Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, data base. 

President Obama’s executive action for as many as 5 million 

aliens will greatly exacerbate this problem just given the sheer 

numbers of new individuals who will be given quasi-legal status to 

be present and working in the U.S. These aliens will be given Social Security numbers and will obtain driver’s licenses. Thus, it will 

be easier for them to register to vote illegally, since they will be 

able to meet the Help America Vote Act’s requirement that voter 

registration applicants provide the last four digits of their Social 

Security number or their current driver’s license. As a result, it 

will be more difficult for election officials to prevent or detect noncitizens who intentionally or negligently affirm their eligibility to 

vote and use these new ID documents. 

What I would recommend is as follows: 

First of all, all Social Security numbers issued to aliens should 

have the letter N to designate non-citizen at the end of the number 

so they can easily be identified as non-citizens. 

DHS should work with the States to develop a more accessible 

process or system to verify the citizenship of registrants, especially 

those who get deferred action. 

Congress should investigate why DOJ is not prosecuting registration and voting by non-citizens, which are serious criminal offenses. 

They also should investigate whether DHS is granting citizenship or deferred status to aliens who have illegally registered or 

voted in past elections. 

All Federal courts should be required to notify local election officials when individuals are summonsed for jury duty from voter registration rolls are excused because they are not U.S. citizens. 

And a voter registration card should not be acceptable as ID on 

the Federal I–9 Form in States that have not implemented proof 

of citizenship requirements. 

Thanks. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. von Spakovsky follows:] 
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Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair now recognizes Secretary Dunlap for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MATTHEW DUNLAP 

Mr. DUNLAP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members 

of the committee. My name is Matt Dunlap. I live in Old Town, 

Maine, and I am Maine’s Secretary of State, and I thank you for 

the opportunity to sit with you today and talk a little bit about the 

aspects of voter registration and some of the supporting documents 

that we utilize to ensure the integrity of that process. 

I am also the chief motor vehicle official for the State of Maine, 

so we issue about a million driver’s licenses, and that process has 

changed significantly over the last 10, 15 years, and I will speak 

to that quite briefly. 

I am quite pleased to tell you that in the State of Maine, at least, 

registering to vote, along with every other aspect of the elections 

process, is highly accessible to qualified citizens and is quite secure. In order to register to vote, you fill out the registration card, 

you have to present a photo identification or non-photo government 

official documentation, provide an official document that shows 

proof of your residency; and we allow for election day registration, 

no-excuse absentee balloting. We had strong systems in the military and overseas voter empowerment act. We have a number of 

provisions in the law that open the doors to voters to come and participate in our process. 

In the 10 years that I have been Secretary of State, we have sent 

two cases of misuse of a ballot to the attorney general for prosecution. Now, I think it is important for me to note here, in the discussion that is centered today around the prospect of voter fraud, that 

no amount of fraud is acceptable. 

Nonetheless, it is extraordinarily rare, so what we talk about in 

the context of voter access is the importance of having integrity in 

the process, but also access. People need to know that that system 

belongs to them and that they can trust it. So the processes that 

we have in place, including a series of sworn Statements that people take an oath to, works quite well and is well policed by local 

elections officials. 

The consequences for violating Maine election law are fairly precipitous. In fact, under one of the very first sections of Title 21-A 

in the Maine revised statutes, it says a person is guilty of a crime 

if they knowingly violate a provision of this title for which no penalty has already been provided. So the message there is don’t even 

think about it. And for people who are non-immigrant aliens, the 

consequences for attempting to register to vote or vote are even 

more precipitous. After they serve a prison sentence, they are deported and can no longer seek admission as a citizen to our Country. 

Now, assuming that they get that far, it is also important to 

know that the documents that they have access to are heavily described in law to prevent misuse of those documents, including the 

driver’s license. It used to be all you had to do was pass the eye 

test, written test, and road test. But now you also have to provide 

proof of citizenship or legal presence in this Country. If you are eligible for a Social Security number, you must provide it to us. And 
37 

these things have done an awful lot to make the credentials more 

secure, but also less convenient to obtain for our citizens. 

In terms of the work that we do on voter registration and driver’s 

license issuance, it is important for me to note, in looking over the 

executive orders, that the executive orders really change nothing in 

how we do our work. The protections in our systems remain, they 

are uncompromised, and, at least in the State of Maine, they work 

pretty well. 

What I have experienced as the chief motor vehicle officer in the 

State of Maine is that, actually, a lot of the new requirements I 

just described, which run parallel to requirements for compliance 

to the Real ID Act of 2005, do create profound hardships for American citizens trying to comply, and we spend a lot of time in our 

exceptions process trying to make sure people can comply with the 

law. 

As an administrator, you have to treat everybody the same. It is 

easy to isolate people and call them potential terrorists or illegal 

aliens using systems that the Federal Government has very neatly 

exempted itself from participating in, but when you have people 

who are born in Canada, who are American citizens, trying to 

prove that they are Americans can be a troubling process for them; 

and we spend a lot of time trying to help American citizens comply 

with our laws. 

We have never had an experience as described by my colleagues, 

with undocumented aliens trying to throw our elections. My experience is they don’t come here to vote and they don’t come here to 

drive; they come here to find a better life; and the changes in immigration law which make it very difficult for them to pursue that is 

occupied entirely by the Federal Government. That field is yours, 

and yours alone. It is our job to try to help citizens comply with 

the law. 

I will try to answer any questions at the pleasure of the chair 

that come from this committee, sir. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Dunlap follows:] 
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Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Secretary Dunlap. 

The chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes. 

If you look at the President’s executive order, I think, as has 

been pointed out by some of my Democratic colleagues, it doesn’t 

say anything about voting; it talks about the work permits and the 

Social Security numbers, kind of the positive benefits that will result from this exercise of ‘‘prosecutorial discretion.’’ But it doesn’t 

say anything about voting. 

So, Secretary Kobach, what would your response be when people 

say the President didn’t even address voting. How could this possibly be an issue? 

Mr. KOBACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is perhaps an unintended consequence of what the President has done through these 

executive actions, because you are now giving approximately 5.8 

million people, once they get their deferred action, a Social Security 

number and they, in turn, can get that driver’s license. 

I want to point something out. Of the aliens that we have specifically identified in Kansas on the voter rolls, the ones that were presented to the Federal District Court, approximately half of those 

aliens registered at the DMV; and this was before we had our proof 

of citizenship requirement in place. So when you get that driver’s 

license, at all too many DMVs across the Country, the clerk who 

has been handing out licenses all day long and has done several 

hundred within just the morning alone, will oftentimes, out of rote 

habit, say, and would you like to register to vote at the end of the 

process. 

So aliens are often given the opportunity to register to vote by 

someone they see as a government agent. And they sometimes use 

that as an excuse when they eventually are found, and sometimes 

in cases in the previous administration, when people were deported 

for falsely asserting U.S. citizenship, which is a felony under Federal law, they would sometimes say, but I thought I could register 

to vote because this lady who works for the government asked me 

if I would like to register to vote. 

So quite often the government agent on behalf of the county unwittingly invites the alien to register; the alien unwittingly assumes that he is able to register. So in many cases it is going to 

be completely accidental, but it will happen. It is a guaranty that 

it will happen, because when they go to the DMV they will almost 

certainly be asked that question. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Mr. Husted, you wrote a letter to the President 

after he issued these executive actions, this was late January 2015, 

and you wanted the Federal Government, I think, to cooperate with 

the State so that you could ensure the integrity of the elections. 

Have you received a response from the Administration about that 

letter? 

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. Chairman, I have not. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And what would you like the Administration to 

do and how will that help you do your job to ensure elections with 

integrity? 

Mr. HUSTED. What we have asked them for are anybody who is 

receiving a Social Security number who is a non-citizen, we would 

like to have the name, the date of birth, and the last four digits 

of their Social Security number. That would allow us to match it 
44 

against our Statewide voter data base to determine whether anyone who is a non-citizen is on our voter rolls, and then we would 

go through the process of trying to remove them. 

But that is simply what we are asking for. We believe that it is 

something that should be easily doable for the Federal Government. And that would include people who are here under present 

tools that allow you to be in America legally and those who would 

come under the President’s new administrative action. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And do you concur with that, Mr. Kobach, would 

that be helpful? 

Mr. KOBACH. That would be helpful. I do think it would also be 

helpful for the Congress to clarify that the Election Assistance 

Commission is a service agency, not a policymaking agency, and 

that it should not have the authority, which it has illegally exercised, at least according to the district court, but that case is still 

pending, its authority to tell States, no, we don’t think you need 

proof of citizenship, which is essentially what that agency did. In 

fact, I shouldn’t say that, it wasn’t the Commission, it was a temporary executive director of the Commission that rendered that 

opinion. So that would also be helpful. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Mr. von Spakovsky, you are somebody who is very 

knowledgeable; you write a lot on voting issues. Are you familiar 

with this Richmond Chattha, and Earnest study that came out in 

2014 about non-citizens voting in the 2008 election? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I am familiar with it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I think, as I read that, it was their contention 

that, and I think as people have pointed out, you are talking about 

some of the big national elections. There may not be enough people 

who are non-citizens to make a huge difference, but in 2008 it was 

these authors’ contention that there were enough non-citizens that 

voted in North Carolina to shift those electoral votes one way, and 

that the 2008 Senate race in Minnesota, the margin of victory was 

lower than the number of non-citizens who voted. Is that an accurate reStatement of what they concluded? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. It is. Now, I should mention that there has 

been some debate over the validity of that, but they based that assessment on something called the Comprehensive congressional 

Survey, which was a survey of literally tens of thousands of voters 

in the 2008 and 2010 election. Look, you can debate that. The authors of the study actually posted a long article in The Washington 

Post in which they answered some of the claims of critics, but that 

shows that we do have a potential problem; and the actual prosecutions that have occurred shows it is a real problem. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Secretary Dunlap, in Maine, if somebody gets a 

work permit based on the President’s executive action, will that, 

ipso facto, entitle them to get a driver’s license in Maine? 

Mr. DUNLAP. Not necessarily, Mr. Chairman. There would be 

other required documents as well. We do require proof of residency. 

The Social Security number is not, we don’t utilize that as proof 

of citizenship simply because you do not need to be an American 

citizen to obtain a Social Security number. It causes a fair amount 

of discomfort with people. For example, when we tell them we don’t 

accept military ID cards as proof of citizenship for the same reason. 
45 

So a work permit on its face would not be sufficient for us to 

issue a driver’s license; there would be other required documents, 

including proof of identity, which might be a passport, it might be 

a birth certificate. Lacking those documents, we would probably 

have to go into a lengthy exceptions process. 

If I may give you a very brief example using an American citizen, 

last year we were confronted with the difficulty of somebody trying 

to obtain a renewal of their driver’s license, and we could not process that request because they could not prove citizenship. As it 

happened, the individual is of Vietnamese birth, had been adopted 

by an American serviceman during the Vietnam War, and the hospital where he was born was destroyed by missile fire 2 weeks after 

his birth and all the records were lost. After a fair amount of research and working with some of our partners in the Federal Government, I was able to inquire after the constituent if they had a 

copy of his adopted father’s obituary, and it was found because he 

had been listed as a survivor, that was sufficient to satisfy our regulations. 

So it takes a fair amount of detective work to ascertain proof of 

identity. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But Maine, though, you would think it would be 

unacceptable if a work permit comes in, nothing else; no rubber 

stamped driver’s license in Maine, correct? 

Mr. DUNLAP. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. 

I will recognize the ranking member here in a second, but I just 

would like to respond to one contention that was made about the 

fact that there are penalties for people who vote illegally in the 

Country, and that if somebody obtained work authorization, that 

could actually lead them to be removed from the Country and sent 

back to their home country. 

The problem with that is I don’t think that any of those penalties 

have any bite whatsoever anymore, because we know, for example, 

by DHS’s own admission, they released, in 2013 alone, 36,000 people who were illegally in our Country and had been convicted of 

criminal offenses, in some cases very serious offenses like homicide 

and rape and aggravated assault and drug trafficking. And of those 

36,000 in 2013, guess what we now know? One thousand of them 

have already been convicted of new crimes. So you literally have 

a situation in which these folks were in the criminal justice system, 

being convicted. Supposedly we say that would be a penalty that 

people would be sent back to their home country. And yet they are 

released into society by DHS and now other people have been victimized already, less than 2 years later. 

So I appreciate the fact that there are penalties. I just don’t 

think that those penalties have very much teeth, given the way 

this system has been administered in the last couple years. 

My time has expired and the chair will now recognize the ranking member of the National Security Subcommittee, Mr. Lynch, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My thanks again to the panel. 
46 

Secretary Husted, I was trying to read your reports from the 

Ohio Statewide election survey. Is it correct that you actually referred 135 cases of voter fraud in 2012? Are those numbers right? 

Mr. HUSTED. Off the top of my head, I believe that sounds about 

right. 

Mr. LYNCH. That was 135 cases out of 5.63 million voters in 

Ohio. I did the math and it comes out to about .00002 percent. 

Secretary Dunlap, you had a chance to review your predecessor’s 

request of review of Maine’s election practices as it was considering 

adopting new voter ID laws. You agreed with the recommendations 

to continue early voting and hold off on the proposed requirements 

for voter identification. Secretary Dunlap, how many instances of 

voter fraud has Maine uncovered, if any? 

Mr. DUNLAP. We had two cases of misuse of an absentee ballot, 

for alleged double voting, Congressman. 

Mr. LYNCH. That is illegal in Maine? 

Mr. DUNLAP. It is, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. OK. There are some parts of my district I think this 

is going on, so I just had to question that. 

Mr. DUNLAP. And I would point out that that is over the course 

of 4 years. 

Mr. LYNCH. The old slogan for James Michael Curley was vote 

early, vote Curley, vote often. So I am correct in saying that you 

would generally describe voter fraud as very rare? 

Mr. DUNLAP. Extremely rare. 

Mr. LYNCH. Would you say the incidence of voter fraud by noncitizens is even smaller? 

Mr. DUNLAP. I have no evidence of it in the State of Maine, Congressman. 

Mr. LYNCH. I just want to go over this again. The proposition 

here is that these folks who have received deferred action status, 

and whether you agree with that or not, that is beside the point. 

I actually think, and I think the President agreed, that the best result would have had us coming up with a comprehensive immigration policy that would address everyone. I think even the Administration said this is imperfect. This was done, in some sense, out of 

frustration because we couldn’t get comprehensive immigration reform done. 

So now we have this deferred action executive action, and that 

leaves us with this situation where certain individuals are going to 

be allowed to stay in the Country. But if they vote, the penalty is 

that they would be deported. That is the penalty. And I am not 

sure equating people who rape and maim and rob is the same 

group that you are talking about going in and actually voting in 

an election. I don’t think you can equate those. 

But does it make sense that someone that has been given a 

chance, at least through deferred action, would go and jeopardize 

their status here in order to be .0002 percent of a Statewide election? What is your sense of this, Mr. Dunlap? 

Mr. DUNLAP. It doesn’t make sense to me, and in many ways, 

Congressman, the executive order brings this around full circle to 

an earlier time in motor vehicle administration when many motor 

vehicle administrators really wanted to provide credentials to people who came here for work purposes, legally or illegally, for the 
47 

simple premise that, if they are in your system, you know who they 

are and you know where they are. And for the purposes of highway 

safety, we all want to make sure that everyone who is operating 

on the roads that are shared by our families are in fact qualified 

to operate those vehicles. 

The reality is if you make it difficult for them to obtain those credentials, they are going to drive anyway, they are just not going 

to have a license. 

What we find is that if people have the opportunity to comply 

with the law, they will. If it is impossible for them to comply with 

the law, then they are already at variance with it. So it only makes 

logical sense that if people have the opportunity to succeed in 

America, that they will seize upon that opportunity and not throw 

it into jeopardy. At least that is what history shows us. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. I have 8 seconds left 

and I am just about done here. 

All I can say is I am honored to be the ranking Democrat on a 

National Security Subcommittee, and I am sure, during this next 

couple of years, we are going to have a real opportunity to deal 

with national security issues. This, however, does not strike me as 

being one. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan, chairman 

of the Benefits Subcommittee, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chairman. 

Secretary Husted, you had some numbers in your testimony. I 

want to go through them. The first number is 291, 291 people who 

were non-citizens who were on the registration rolls in Ohio, is that 

right? 

Mr. HUSTED. That is correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. How did you derive that number? 

Mr. HUSTED. When you apply for a driver’s license in Ohio as a 

non-citizen, you have to indicate that at the time you receive your 

license. We went back, searched that data, then went and looked 

at the Statewide voter roll after the election, found the matches of 

291 people, and then waited an entire year, because this is self-reported data, and then waited an entire year to see if these individuals also self-reported themselves as non-citizens a year later. So 

it is their information; they are the ones that provided it. 

Mr. JORDAN. And a year and a half way to get to that number. 

Mr. HUSTED. That is the only way we could get to it. 

Mr. JORDAN. In your professional judgment, is that a low estimate or could the number be significantly higher? 

Mr. HUSTED. It could be higher. That is just what we can find 

out at this point. 

Mr. JORDAN. OK. Then another number you had in your testimony was 70 elections. These are the number of elections decided 

by one vote? 

Mr. HUSTED. That is correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. And that was in what timeframe? 

Mr. HUSTED. That is in the past 15 months. 

Mr. JORDAN. In the past 15 months. So that .00002 percent that 

the gentleman from Massachusetts was talking about, that is a 
48 

small number, but that small number could have changed 70 elections in Ohio in the last 15 months, is that right? 

Mr. HUSTED. Yes. We have had 70 elections that were decided by 

one vote or a tie. 

Mr. JORDAN. So you have 291 on the voter registration rolls; that 

is a low estimate. You had 70 elections in the last 15 months decided by one vote. And now the President just said five million 

more non-citizens can get access to the very documents that allow 

people to register to vote. Is that accurate? 

Mr. HUSTED. That is correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. So the problem is potentially much bigger, right? 

Mr. HUSTED. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, in your testimony you also talked about voter 

registration drives as maybe the biggest concern that you have as 

the head election official in your State. Can you walk me through 

that? 

Mr. HUSTED. Yes. In Ohio, as you are well aware, there are a lot 

of third-party voter registration drives. Their goal is to register as 

many people as they can. A lot of times those individuals don’t take 

the care that somebody at the DMV might be at explaining the 

rules for doing this, and a lot of times folks who—of that 291, some 

of them didn’t even know that they weren’t allowed to be registered 

to vote. 

Mr. JORDAN. So the point is that compounds everything I just 

went through, potentially. 

Mr. HUSTED. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. Right. So we have 70 elections in Ohio decided by 

one vote in the last 15 months. Now, think about it. If some of that 

was done by non-citizens illegally participating in the election process, what does that say to citizens? 

What does that say to a senior citizen, when this non-citizen is 

already getting Social Security benefits? What does that say to a 

taxpayer when this non-citizen is already getting tax refunds? 

What does it say to legal immigrants who came here and did it the 

right way and are citizens, what does it say to them that now the 

position they took may have been defeated because a non-citizen 

potentially in 70 different races in the last 15 months decided the 

outcome of an election? That is what we are concerned about, 

right? 

Mr. HUSTED. It says we are letting them down and we need to 

fix it. 

Mr. JORDAN. Exactly. And that is why you are here and that is 

why you wrote the letter to the President of the United States, 

right? 

Mr. HUSTED. That is correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, in November, when the President decided he 

was going to go down this path and create this mess we just 

walked through, did he contact you, John Husted, Secretary of 

State for the State of Ohio? 

Mr. HUSTED. No. 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, think about this. Every political pundit in the 

world knows Ohio is always a central State in every Presidential 

election; important State, seventh largest State, a lot of people 

there. And the President of the United States didn’t contact the 
49 

guy who has been running elections in the State that is always the 

center of the university in a Presidential race, didn’t contact you 

and ask, hey, is there going to be concerns or problems if we do 

this? 

Mr. HUSTED. He did not, no. 

Mr. JORDAN. Now, you are in town, you and Mr. Kobach and Mr. 

Dunlap are in town with the Secretary of State Association, right? 

You have a conference and you are listening to speakers and all the 

things you guys do. Do you know, Mr. Husted, if the President contacted the Secretary of States Association before he issued this 

order in November of last year? 

Mr. HUSTED. I am not aware of any contact. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Kobach? 

Mr. KOBACH. I am not aware. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Dunlap? 

Mr. DUNLAP. The President does not require my permission to 

issue an executive order. 

Mr. JORDAN. I didn’t ask that. I said did he contact you? 

Mr. DUNLAP. He did not, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. So the head of election officials, the association that 

represents and conducts elections, the President didn’t even talk to 

you guys when he did this, and now is potentially allowing five million people to get access to the documents so they can register to 

vote, and he didn’t even have the decency to call you guys? 

Mr. HUSTED. We did not get contacted, and I would say why I 

wrote the letter is that I want to comply with the Federal law. 

Mr. JORDAN. Exactly, which brings me to my last question, Mr. 

Chairman. 

We have Secretary Husted, who is offering a solution. In fact, he 

wrote the Ohio delegation and he wrote the White House and said, 

hey, here is all we have. I am not even going to comment. I think 

what he did is unconstitutional; most law scholars do. Even liberal 

ones think what he did is unconstitutional. 

But you are not even commenting on that, you are just saying 

we want to fix it so at least our elections can only be decided by 

people who are actually citizens. You have offered a solution. Have 

you heard from the White House about your solution, Mr. Husted? 

Mr. HUSTED. We have not. And it is particularly important when 

you are the Secretary of State from Ohio because we will get sued 

for not complying with the Federal law. 

Mr. JORDAN. Exactly. Exactly. This is unbelievable. The White 

House didn’t talk to the people who run elections before they did 

the order, and now we have a secretary of State in one of the most 

important States in every election, every Presidential election, offers a solution and the White House doesn’t even have the decency. 

They weren’t contacted on the front-end, but they should at least 

have the decency, when they offer a solution to fix the problem the 

White House created, the decency to talk to them and say, all 

right, let’s work on it. 

I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes Ms. Norton for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I hear what passes 

for evidence, I can only say it is no wonder that the last two Con-
50 

gresses have gone down in history as the least productive in American history. 

I want to say for the record that the Social Security card that 

these immigrants get says valid for work only with DHS authority. 

These are immigrants who, for years, have been living in fear because they are undocumented. They live in such fear that they 

don’t even report crime. Now we are made to believe that they will 

go to the polls and throw elections, even the much vaunted election 

in Ohio. 

Mr. Dunlap, let me thank you for apparently being able to secure 

the vote without denying the vote. 

In Kansas, Mr. Kobach, you have implemented so-called proof of 

citizen voting requirements. I do want to note that it delayed voting registration applications for 22,000 people, at least as of last 

four. That is 16 percent. Most of those were probably just as full 

citizens as you and I are. 

But let me turn to Ohio while I still have some time. Mr. Husted, 

you have been particularly determined. In 2012, you initially denied the expansion of early voting hours in urban Democratic-leading counties covering Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, and Toledo. But 

at the same time, the record will show, there were early voting 

hours in heavily Republican counties like Warren and Butler. They 

were expanded to include nights and weekends. 

The record shows there were such loud complaints about this 

patent, unadulterated unfairness that you limited early voting 

across the State to weekdays only. Is that not true? 

Mr. HUSTED. Ranking Member Norton, that is not true. What is 

true in Ohio is that we have nearly a month to vote, 24 hours—— 

Ms. NORTON. Wait a minute. I didn’t ask you what happens in 

Ohio. Did you not deny the expansion of early voting? 

Mr. HUSTED. I did not. 

Ms. NORTON. In Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, and Toledo? 

Mr. HUSTED. And the answer to your question is I did not. 

Ms. NORTON. What did you do? 

Mr. HUSTED. I set uniform hours for the State of Ohio so that 

every voter would have equal access. The local—— 

Ms. NORTON. And you are denying that at the same time—— 

Mr. HUSTED. I am denying. 

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. The early voting hours were set in Republican-leading districts. You are denying that on the face of the 

record. 

Mr. HUSTED. I had nothing to do with it. Those were local election officials that did that. 

Ms. NORTON. So you had nothing to do with that. Well, then, Mr. 

Husted, while my time is up, sir, before my time is up, isn’t it true 

that these voting restrictions were overturned by a Federal district 

court and that you did not immediately comply with the full restoration of those voting rights? 

Mr. HUSTED. That is not true, ma’am. We have complied with the 

Federal court ruling. We were also granted a stay. 

Ms. NORTON. I said you did not immediately comply. 

Mr. HUSTED. We immediately complied. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you appealed to the Supreme Court. 

Mr. HUSTED. Ma’am, that is how the justice system works. 
51 

Ms. NORTON. And they refused to hear your case. 

Mr. HUSTED. And they did hear my case. 

Ms. NORTON. And what did they decide? 

Mr. HUSTED. They gave us a stay, and it is still in Federal court. 

Ms. NORTON. So you believe you have every chance of prevailing 

in this case, a case with the facts I have just enumerated, with the 

differences? 

Mr. HUSTED. Ma’am, we vote for twice as long as the District of 

Columbia does, and everybody votes by the same rules. 

Ms. NORTON. I doubt that you vote for longer than the District 

of Columbia. I doubt that very seriously and I challenge you to 

send to this committee evidence of that. But if you do, let me make 

sure that I inform elected officials so that they would at least be 

as good as Ohio is. 

Mr. Husted, a recent study by two of your prominent State universities, Case Western Reserve and Cleveland State University, 

found that in 2008 African-American voters made up 56.4 percent 

of all weekend voters in Cayuga County, even though adult African-Americans made up only 28 percent of the population there. 

Can you understand, therefore, why there has been such an outcry 

in Ohio when two prominent research universities in your State 

found that cutting early voting on Sundays and weekend evenings 

could disproportionately affect African-Americans? I mean, 

shouldn’t that concern you in a State like Ohio? 

Mr. DESANTIS. Her time has expired, but I will let you answer 

that, then I will recognize Mr. Walberg. 

Mr. HUSTED. Ma’am, I understand that, and I would invite you 

to Ohio to see what we do. I enforce the Ohio law, I don’t make 

the Ohio law. But when granted the opportunity to establish hours, 

I have granted 2 weekends of early voting on the Sunday and Saturday before the elections; and that is how the Presidential election 

will be run in Ohio under a directive that I have issued so long as 

the courts allow so. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The chair now recognizes Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel 

for being here. And though this cuts into some of my questioning 

time, I think it is important that I express real concern, and even 

offense, at some of the Statements that are being made. I hope it 

comes from emotion, and not from the heart of hearts, that any 

party is attempting to quash and take away the rights that are 

given to all citizens of this Country, all legal citizens of this Country, regardless of color, race, creed, origin, gender. That is not happening with any of my support, and I know my colleagues as well. 

I also say that that is offensive to those legal and documented 

aliens who serve in my communities well in providing services on 

farms, in hospitality, in construction, in IT, and all sorts of things 

that are extremely important to us, and yet they are doing it legally. 

I say it as a proud father-in-law of a Rwandan who is here on 

an appropriate legal visa in the United States right now that expires in April, and he, with my daughter, will be going back to 

their home in Uganda. I say it as well based upon the fact that this 

hearing is important not so much even for the issues of voting, but 
52 

the issue of constitutionality and the strength of our Constitution, 

a Constitution that a legal constitutional scholar, our President, 

Stated 22 times he did not have the power to do this executive 

order, and then he did it. This is a constitutional crisis that we are 

dealing with and this is one of the issues that has resulted from 

that constitutional crisis. 

So I make that Statement. I believe it is important for us to 

make sure that is on the record as well, that we want to see this 

Country move forward legally, and all citizens, all legals that are 

here are treated justly and fairly. 

Mr. von Spakovsky, how big do you think this problem is? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, it is really hard for us to know because there is no systematic verification of citizenship status across 

the Country; we can only get a rough idea of it. 

Mr. WALBERG. There is no way to quantify it? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. No. But that is why, for example, I cited the 

GAO report, where they found that 3 percent of people called for 

Federal jury duty, and those come from voter registration lists, so 

3 percent of 30,000 were excused from jury duty under oath because they were not U.S. citizens. That gives you a flavor of it. 

I would remind this committee that in 1996 this committee 

issued a report investigating an election contest in California, one 

congressional race won by less than 1,000 votes, and in that one 

congressional race, after comparing INS records with voting 

records, this committee found that there were 624 non-citizens, 

clear evidence, who had voted illegally in that congressional race, 

and another 192 where there was circumstantial evidence that they 

were not U.S. citizens. Now, the race wasn’t overturned, but this 

is just one investigation 20 years ago that found hundreds of noncitizens who had voted in a congressional race in California. 

Mr. WALBERG. And it is likely to increase in its problem exponentially? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I believe so because now individuals who 

are here illegally are going to be legally obtaining Social Security 

numbers and driver’s licenses, which are key documents in order 

to get registered to vote, according to the law that Congress itself 

passed in 2007, the Help America Vote Act. 

Mr. WALBERG. In your opinion, how do we prevent or stop noncitizen voter registration or voter fraud? Does Congress need to 

change the law? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Yes. I think what Secretary Husted has 

said about getting access to the DHS data base on everyone given 

deferred action, for example, so they have their name, the last four 

digits of a Social Security number, and a birth date so they can 

start verifying that. That is the first step. The other thing you 

should do is require all Federal courts to notify State election officials when someone is called for jury duty and they are excused because they are not a U.S. citizen. They are not doing that right 

now. That is just a basic step. 

Mr. WALBERG. So are there existing laws that could be enforced 

that aren’t right now that would assist in this problem? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Yes. I would tell you I spoke to a former 

election official just this week, and he said that while DHS has finally started complying with the Federal law that requires them to 
53 

verify citizenship information when they get inquiries from State 

election officials, that they put up all kinds of burdensome red tape 

to make it difficult. The current system is slow and cumbersome, 

and he highly recommended that DHS work with State election officials to set up a better, quicker system. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair notes the presence of the committee chairman, Mr. 

Chaffetz. Would you like to be recognized? 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Husted, for the record, I believe that Congresswoman Norton 

was talking about a 2012 case and you were giving answers to a 

2014 case. That is sort of my understanding of her interchange. 

But my questions are for Mr. Dunlap. I have heard a lot of 

hypotheticals today. I am sure anything can happen. It is certainly 

possible that that .002 percent change could 1 day affect the State 

of Ohio, that could 1 day affect a Presidential election. Anything 

is possible. But I just note that in the last election two-thirds of 

Americans did not vote. That number dwarfs by orders of magnitude .002 percent, and my view is that in our republic, in our democracy, we are better served by having as many eligible voters 

vote as possible. Everyone’s time is limited and constrained. I think 

that our democracy is better if the 50 secretaries of State focused 

their time on increasing voter turnout for eligible voters, that 

makes our Country stronger, than focusing on .002 percent 

hypotheticals. 

So let’s talk about what the actual laws are right now in America. 

Mr. Dunlap, can you just walk through again the requirements 

that an individual must meet to be eligible to vote in your State 

of Maine? 

Mr. DUNLAP. In order to be eligible to vote, sir, they have to be 

a domiciled resident of the State, they must demonstrate citizenship, they have to give proof of identity, and affirmative proof of 

where they live. 

Mr. LIEU. And what are the consequences if someone, under 

Maine law, engages in voter fraud? 

Mr. DUNLAP. The penalties range from elevated misdemeanors to 

Class C felonies, which are punishable by up to 5 years in prison 

and $5,000 in fine, and then being remitted to Federal authorities 

for further penalties and expulsion from the Country, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. And has the President’s executive order changed the 

law on voter fraud in any way whatsoever? 

Mr. DUNLAP. No, sir. We still maintain the same due diligence 

that we did before. 

Mr. LIEU. Has the President’s executive order conferred any new 

right to vote for non-citizens in Maine? 

Mr. DUNLAP. It has not affected the right to vote for anyone 

other than naturalized or born United States citizens, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. And it is still illegal for non-citizens to affirm that they 

are citizens in order to vote in Maine. 

Mr. DUNLAP. That is correct, sir. 
54 

Mr. LIEU. As a representative of California, I would like to, at 

this time, read an excerpt from a Statement prepared for this hearing by California Common Cause, a national non-partisan advocacy 

organization founded in 1970 to enable citizens to make their 

voices heard in a political process. California Common Cause 

writes: ‘‘Ensuring that every eligible citizen has the opportunity to 

cast a vote free from discrimination and obstacles is fundamental 

to a democracy that aims for and professes representation of all. As 

Stated below, we see no threat to election processes at either the 

State or Federal level resulting from the President’s orders.’’ 

I ask unanimous consent to enter this Statement into the congressional record, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection, it will be so entered. 

Mr. LIEU. And with that I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back the balance of his 

time. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think it has been clearly established here so far that I don’t 

think there is anyone in the room that would not acknowledge that 

there at least have been instances, as you have brought up, in the 

thousands, perhaps, in fact, certainly over the course of time. We 

have examples from North Carolina and Minnesota extensively so. 

We all know that there have been problems of voter fraud. We also 

know that Federal law authorizes the Department of Justice to 

prosecute non-citizens for both registering and voting. This is a 

criminal offense and, as has just been mentioned, can result in removal from the Country. 

My first question to each of you, do you know, to the best of your 

knowledge, of any example where the Department of Justice has in 

fact brought charges against anyone or deported them? 

Mr. HUSTED. I do not, sir. 

Mr. KOBACH. I know of examples in the prior Administration. I 

cannot think of anyone of an alien voting in this Administration 

where charges have been brought against that alien for voting. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I have to agree with Secretary Kobach. I 

know of instances, during the prior Administration, where individuals were not only prosecuted by the Justice Department, but this 

was considered in their citizenship applications. But as I pointed 

out, I am not aware of that being done in this Administration, and 

I know from personal knowledge that of the almost 300 individuals 

that Fairfax County sent over to the Justice Department notifying 

them that these were not U.S. citizens, that they had registered 

and that almost half of them had voted. That fell into a black hole 

at the Justice Department. 

They did nothing to investigate or prosecute those cases, and I 

don’t believe that any of those non-citizens had any of the penalties 

brought up against them that could have allowed their removal 

from the Country. In fact, I cite in my written testimony a letter 

published by a county election official in Tennessee that she got 

from a non-citizen. He had gotten this from DHS and it was a letter—this person was applying for citizenship and this was a letter 
55 

telling him that he needed to be sure that he was taken off the 

local voter registration list. 

So they clearly weren’t going to punish him or in any way delay 

his citizenship; they just told them, well, to go forward with your 

citizenship application, you need to be sure you are off the list. 

Mr. HICE. OK, thank you. 

Mr. Dunlap? 

Mr. DUNLAP. I do not know of any such action in my State, sir, 

but I also Stated earlier that we have never had a complaint of 

such action, either, so it makes sense. 

Mr. HICE. OK. All right, so what we have here, evidently, is that 

at least within this Administration we have no examples that we 

have any knowledge of where the law in this regard has been 

upheld by the Justice Department. So we have, evidently, a Justice 

Department unwilling to abide by the law, which, of course, is what 

we are seeing across the board even in so many instances right 

now; and if the rule of law is not going to be upheld, it is of very 

little value at all to any of us. 

Now, it has also been brought up that the motor voter law, as 

it is known, where individuals are given the opportunity to register 

to vote when they get their driver’s license, is posing a significant 

problem, as you have mentioned; and from what we hear from multiple DMVs across the Country, they don’t believe it is their responsibility to find out whether or not these individuals are citizens of 

the United States or not. 

Would you agree with that? 

Mr. KOBACH. I would say that those States that are fully complying with the Real ID Act of 2005, they are least trying to ascertain whether or not the person is a citizen who is a U.S. citizen 

or is an alien here lawfully present. But it is at the later stage of 

the process where they ask that final question, and would you like 

to register to vote. Even in fully compliant Real ID States they are 

not going back and checking, hey, wait a minute, I have to check 

your citizenship. 

Mr. HICE. But at some point someone has to be responsible; it 

is either the State or the Federal Government. Real quickly, almost 

a yes or no answer, is the DHS trustworthy? Do States believe that 

they can trust the DHS to give this information? 

Mr. KOBACH. We have asked DHS for a lot of information and 

it has not been forthcoming from DHS. And the one program they 

do make available, SAVE, which was created in the 1990’s for 

State governments to use, they make that virtually impossible to 

use; they say, well, we won’t let you check those names unless you 

can give us an independent number associated with that alien. Virtually impossible for the State to do. 

Mr. HICE. We have an enormous problem here, obviously, and it 

is only getting bigger. The President’s actions to grant de facto amnesty to five million is just exasperating an already existing problem, and I and Congress should look for solutions to prevent noncitizens from diluting the ballots of citizens in this Country. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair now recognizes Ms. Kelly for 5 minutes. 
56 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would first like to ask for 

unanimous consent to enter a Statement into the record by our colleague, Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, who represents the 11th 

District of Ohio. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you. 

Ms. KELLY. I would like to focus a bit on the occurrence specifically of non-citizen voter fraud. 

Secretary Husted, your office released a report on voter fraud in 

May 2013, including a review by 88 county boards of election in 

Ohio. According to that report, over five million total votes were 

cast in Ohio in that election. According to a letter you sent to the 

Ohio Attorney General, Mike DeWine, on December 18, 2013, how 

many instances of non-citizen voter fraud did you refer for the investigation? 

Mr. HUSTED. We referred 291 cases on the non-citizen aspect of 

the issues. Those are two separate reports, so that you know; there 

was the voter fraud report, which did not include our non-citizen 

research because we had to wait for a calendar year after the election to double-check our work on that to make sure we didn’t include anybody that shouldn’t have been on the list. But on the noncitizen piece, there were 291 non-citizens that were referred to the 

attorney general’s office. 

Ms. KELLY. And what happened with those cases? 

Mr. HUSTED. Those were investigated. Some of them were referred to local prosecutors. Seventeen of the people in those individual cases had voted; some of them have been prosecuted; there 

were plea agreements in other cases. But what we did with those 

who didn’t vote, we simply sent them a letter and asked them to 

remove themselves from the voter rolls, because we do not have the 

authority under the law to remove them, so we asked them to remove themselves. 

And then after waiting a few months, if they didn’t comply, we 

sent them a second letter. And if they didn’t respond to the second 

letter, then we turned them over to the attorney general’s office for 

further action. Some of them removed themselves; some of them 

have, in some cases they didn’t know they were on the voter rolls; 

in some cases they didn’t know that they weren’t allowed to be on 

the voter rolls; and in some cases we have never been able to track 

the individual down. 

Ms. KELLY. So you wouldn’t say people maliciously were trying 

to do something wrong if they didn’t even know or some of the 

things you just said. 

Mr. HUSTED. I think it is across the board. Some people were on 

there that knew they shouldn’t be; some people were on there that 

didn’t know that they shouldn’t be. 

Ms. KELLY. OK. So 17 cases of non-citizen voter fraud, so that, 

as I think one of my colleagues said, represents 0.0003 percent of 

the over five million total voters in Ohio. 

I would like to say I believe it is a misallocation of time, money, 

and committee resources to combat a voting problem that is practically non-existent. This is especially true when many States are 

taking steps to make voting more difficult for eligible Americans by 

curtailing early voting hours and other barriers. We need to combat 
57 

that problem. And I believe this is especially important to make 

this point now, as this is the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting 

Rights Act, and it is utterly ridiculous in 2015 that American citizens are still fighting for the right to vote. 

I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlelady yields back. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Carter for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Appreciate you for being 

here very much. 

Full disclosure: I am from Georgia, and in Georgia we are only 

one of four States that has a voter ID law. In further full disclosure, I am proud of the fact that I was a member of the Georgia 

State legislature when we passed that bill, and I voted in favor of 

it and even co-sponsored it. So full disclosure there. 

I want to ask each of you, if you will, do you think it is one of 

our greatest rights here in America, the right to vote? Do you value 

that, as I do, as one of your greatest rights as a citizen? 

Mr. HUSTED. I certainly do. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

Mr. KOBACH. Absolutely. And I would add that every time an 

alien votes, even if it doesn’t succeed in stealing the election, it effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen and effectively disenfranchises that U.S. citizen. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. And I have to agree wholeheartedly with 

that. 

Mr. DUNLAP. I would certainly say, sir, that the right to vote is 

the preeminent of all of our rights. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you all. 

Let me ask you. At least three of the four of you are secretaries 

of State. Do you consider it your responsibility in the office that 

you hold to make certain that only American citizens vote in our 

elections? 

Mr. HUSTED. Yes, sir, I do, and I am here to try to find a solution 

to that problem, because as the Ohio Secretary of State, we cannot 

comply with the Federal law if we don’t have access to the name, 

the date of birth, and the last four digits of the Social Security 

number. And we will see litigation where the courts will settle this 

issue rather than the Congress or the Administration, and I ask of 

you to give us what we need so that we can comply with the Federal law. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

Mr. KOBACH. Absolutely it is our responsibility do that, and I 

would note, partially in response to what Mr. Lynch said in his 

opening remarks, the fact that you attest to your U.S. citizenship 

on a voter registration card is not enough; it is clearly not enough 

from the many hundreds of cases, collectively, who have shown 

where people have signed the voter registration card, have checked 

the box, yes, I am a U.S. citizen. In many cases they probably 

didn’t even know what they were checking because we subsequently learned that many of these aliens on our rolls don’t read 

English or know English particularly well. So they may have been 

manipulated into signing that card. 
58 

But the bottom line is simply checking a box is not enough. That 

is why we in Kansas, and likewise in Georgia, moved to a proof of 

citizenship system. More States need to move in that direction and 

we need the Federal Government, especially the EAC, to get out of 

our way so that we can ensure that our voter rolls are clean. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. Dunlap? 

Mr. DUNLAP. I do believe that it is part of our prime directive 

to make sure that our systems do have integrity, but also that people can access them as well, and that is a very delicate balance 

that we maintain through our State legislature as we craft election 

law. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Husted, you have made it clear that Ohio takes 

this very seriously and you have a number of checks and balances 

to make sure that it is a truly American citizen who gets to vote. 

Mr. Kobach, I am very aware you have the same laws as the 

State of Georgia with voter ID. 

Mr. Dunlap, I am just a little bit concerned. I still don’t understand the checks and balances that exist in Maine to make sure, 

the system there, that only Americans are voting. 

Mr. DUNLAP. Well, if you are speaking in reference to a voter ID 

statute, that was proposed the last legislature and it was converted 

under the Republican administration that preceded me into a resolve that created a study committee that examined that issue. In 

the State of Maine, that study committee actually recommended 

that we not pursue photo ID to access a ballot because of the hardship that would cause on legal citizens from being able to access 

their ballots to participate in their election. 

Mr. CARTER. OK, so you don’t have voter ID, but what proof do 

you require, then? 

Mr. DUNLAP. Well, in order to register to vote, as I mentioned before, you do have to present photo ID, a government issued identification, and also an official document that shows that you live in 

the precinct in which you are registering. In order to obtain that 

driver’s license, if you will, under Maine law, and I didn’t get an 

opportunity to answer Mr. Hice when he asked the same question, 

but we are required under Maine law to determine citizenship. So 

if you follow that line, then we do have that check and balance, 

along with the subscribed oath that you take when you register to 

vote that everything you State in there is, in fact, true. 

Mr. CARTER. I understand. Is a Social Security card enough? 

Mr. DUNLAP. No, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. So it takes more than that. 

Mr. DUNLAP. Absolutely. 

Mr. CARTER. Much has been made here today about the fact of 

this .002 percent, and I get that, I understand that. But I think all 

of you agree that even that should be zero, not .002 percent. 

Mr. Dunlap, one last question. How many elections in the past 

few years have been decided in the State of Maine by .002 percent 

or less? 

Mr. DUNLAP. When people say, sir, that they don’t think their 

vote counts, I invite them to come to a recount where we see many 

races decided by one vote. 

Mr. CARTER. So that .002 percent could have made a difference. 
59 

Mr. DUNLAP. Our races can be small, so it may exist outside that 

statistical figure, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The chair asks unanimous consent that Mr. Husted’s letter be 

entered into the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The chair now recognizes Mrs. Watson Coleman 

for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, 

I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter certain forms into 

the record, and those forms are the voter registration forms for 

Kansas, Ohio, and Maine. I think each of these documents clearly 

asks whether the submitter is a U.S. citizen. Kansas, for example, 

has a clear Statement saying, Warning: If you submit a false voter 

registration application, you may be convicted and sentenced to up 

to 17 months in prison. So I ask unanimous consent to enter this 

form into the record because it seems clear to me that non-citizens 

who receive a driver’s license are fully apprised of the consequences 

of lying about citizenship on their applications. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Kobach, I have a question for you. 

You mentioned something relating to a hog election in Kansas, and 

that you had problems with people from, I believe it was, Oklahoma? Were those people from Oklahoma non-citizens of Kansas or 

non-citizens of the United States of America? 

Mr. KOBACH. They were non-citizens of the United States of 

America based on the county clerk of Seward County. Most of the 

employees at the hog processing plant in Oklahoma were non-citizens, both legal and illegal, it is believed. But some of the Seward 

County personnel recognized some of those applicants as being noncitizens based on personal knowledge and then based on the general perspective—— 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Non-citizens of what? 

Mr. KOBACH. Of the United States. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. OK. How do they know that? 

Mr. KOBACH. As I just mentioned, there was some personal 

knowledge involving specific individuals, and then the county clerk 

also made a general assessment based on the fact that most of the 

employees at the plant were non-citizens. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Dunlap, how does the Maine mail-in registration form clarify 

voting eligibility requirements? 

Mr. DUNLAP. Well, under State and Federal law, we do allow 

people to mail in their voter registrations. They do have to include 

a photocopy of their ID, as well as copies of those official documents I mentioned earlier; and they have to provide us with either 

the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s 

license as part of that mail-in registration. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So, to your knowledge, has there been 

a significant reporting of individuals not understanding this, these 

requirements? 

Mr. DUNLAP. I have not gotten any reports of people not understanding the requirements. The work that is done, especially under 
60 

the National Voter Registration Act, in our motor vehicle offices 

around the State of Maine, that work does include ascertaining, as 

I mentioned, citizenship and explaining the meaning of the documentation to those that are applying. And when people do mail in 

their voter registration forms, if they are incomplete, they are rejected and referred back to the registrars of voters, who then followup with the voter to make sure the documentation is complete. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So when third parties go out and do 

voter registration, how are you sure that they are getting people 

who are eligible to register to vote to actually register? Are they 

asked to accompany those forms with the information that you 

would ask of an individual? 

Mr. DUNLAP. We handle those one card at a time, so each one 

is treated separately and each one is examined for every field to 

make sure the fields are complete and that the documentation that 

is required is, in fact, provided. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Do you think that the laws on the books 

as of right now are really adequate to ensure that there is an understanding and a compliance for voting? 

Mr. DUNLAP. I do. I do. And we have had, as I say, a number 

of hotly contested recounts over this last election cycle, and as 

those recounts were concluded and as the election itself was certified and tabulated, I have had no question about the integrity of 

our election systems in the State of Maine. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Has there been anything identified in 

the Presidential executive actions that are loosely related to this 

issue, if at all, and I certainly don’t think that they are, that somehow enhances the opportunity of voter fraud by non-citizens? 

Mr. DUNLAP. It has not impacted our ability to enforce Maine 

election law. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Does your office have a sense that our 

participation of eligible voters voting or not voting has become sort 

of diminished in our elections and that we should be doing something to encourage those who can vote to vote? 

Mr. DUNLAP. Not in the State of Maine. This last election cycle, 

I am proud to say that Maine led the Nation in turnout, with 60.9 

percent of voter-age eligible voters utilizing the processes that we 

provide them. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Well, I certainly wish we could take that 

as a standard and try to apply it and exceed it. 

I certainly think that what we have been experiencing these last 

elections would suggest very strongly that we need to be concentrating on efforts to get eligible people to vote, and that the few instances and the expectations or the projections of a possibility of 

a problem does not necessitate the kinds of resources and application of time, resource, or money that we are devoting to this today. 

Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, 

Mr. Walker, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to commend you guys for the duration here and hanging in there. But I 

think even more I am impressed with these young ladies who have 
61 

sit on this front row the entire time. I don’t know who their parents are, but maybe we need to have you back on a committee on 

parenting or something. So, yes, excellent job there. Well behaved. 

I want to start off by addressing something absolutely crucial to 

the understanding and the purpose of this hearing. I have heard 

a few comments today saying this is frivolous, why are we here, 

but let’s be clear. The exact purpose that we are here today, and 

that is because of President Obama’s executive overreach. Whatever the President could not pass through Congress in his first 6 

years is now getting force-fed to all Americans. He has created 

chaos at the Federal, National, and at the State level by expanding 

the executive powers at whim. That is one of the reasons that you 

guys are here today. 

Strong Statement, but I believe his disrespect of the presidency, 

that is, the President, the legislative process, and the States as 

independent sovereign bodies. Most of all, he has cheated Americans out of their constitutional prerogative to be heard by their 

elected representatives. 

I do have a question. It seems like today that we have tried to 

make a case in some instances that only a little bit of illegal activity is OK. I don’t understand that, so my question is what percentage of voter fraud is OK. I know that is rhetorical, but I would love 

to hear just a quick response on how you feel about that for the 

record. 

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. Walker, no amount of voter fraud is OK, particularly for a Secretary of State who is in charge of overseeing 

elections. And I have heard the topic come up about voter turnout. 

I think voter turnouts improve when people believe that their elections are run with integrity. And this is part of helping to build 

confidence in the entire system of elections, and that is, in part, 

along with the legal responsibilities I have, as to why I am here 

today. 

Mr. WALKER. Well, thanks for taking pride in that, Mr. Husted. 

Mr. Kobach? 

Mr. KOBACH. I agree with Secretary Husted. Absolutely no voter 

fraud is OK. And even if the instances are relatively small in a 

particular election, like we saw in the 2010 election in North Kansas City, Missouri, it can steal an election. There are so many close 

elections. So it is a red herring to keep reciting a very small percentage. If we didn’t have that close elections in America, then that 

would be a legitimate argument. But we do. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Congressman, the whole reason the U.S. 

Supreme Court upheld the voter ID as constitutional in 2008 was 

because it said not only does this Country have a history of voter 

fraud, but could make the difference in close elections. It is a completely invalid comparison to take the number of prosecutions in 

cases and compare it to, for example, the total number of votes cast 

in a particular State because of that very issue, it can make a difference in close elections. 

I keep going back to Fairfax County, the 117 individuals we 

found who were not U.S. citizens who had voted in past elections. 

Virginia has millions of registered voters. Yet, in the past few years 

we have had attorney generals in other cases decided by less than 
62 

500 votes in one case, less than 1,000 votes in another case. And 

that was only one county where we found over 100 non-citizens 

who had voted in prior elections. 

The key thing is any kind of fraud like that cheats American citizens from the value of their vote. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you. 

Mr. Dunlap? 

Mr. DUNLAP. No violation of law can be excused or dismissed. In 

the context of this discussion here today about the impact of the 

President’s executive order and our ability to conduct free, fair, and 

transparent elections, and some of the solutions that have been offered, I am a little bit bewildered by it all simply because, as I 

have Stated repeatedly here today, the executive order has not impacted my ability to enforce Maine election law or Maine motor vehicle law. 

I would point out that I flew here in a plane; I did not build an 

airport and start an airline. So the real solution to the problems 

that are perceived here is immigration reform, not trying to build 

new data bases and find ways to screen out ineligible voters. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Dunlap. 

One last question. I have about 45 seconds left, so just a quick 

answer. What percentage of voter fraud goes undetected? Is there 

any way to have a number on that? How would we know that? 

Mr. DUNLAP. I can say with great assertion that our 503 municipal clerks and registrars do an extraordinary job making sure that 

this system is executed to its fullest and that every T is crossed 

and I is dotted. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. And I have to say that, as the 7th Circuit 

pointed out when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, you can’t detect 

that kind of fraud when you don’t have the tools in place to detect 

it. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you. That is my point. 

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Kobach. 

Mr. KOBACH. Prior to our adoption of laws with proof of citizenship and photo ID, the vast majority of voter fraud went undetected. And one other point. The numbers we have given you, 291 

cases in Ohio, I mentioned in my testimony approximately 200 

cases in Arizona, 20 cases in Kansas over a 3-year period; those are 

just driver’s license data base checks. That is only the small subset 

of aliens who happened to have applied for a driver’s license. The 

rest of the alien population you cannot detect on the voter roll 

using that method. 

Mr. WALKER. So the point being this: the numbers that we have 

heard thrown out, .02 percent here, really is a number that 

shouldn’t even be taken into consideration because of what we can’t 

detect that is voter fraud. 

Mr. Husted, I will let you close, then I will yield back. 

Mr. HUSTED. I would just reiterate that I can’t answer the question without access to the last four digits of the Social Security 

number, the name, and the date of birth, because there is no way 

for us to make that determination without access to that information. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 
63 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 

Duncan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I had other meetings, and I apologize if I get into something that 

you have already covered, but I read in our briefing paper that it 

says non-citizen voting is a criminal offense under 18 U.S. Code 

Section 611, and a removable offense in INA Section 212, various 

subsets. But then it is very seldom prosecuted, seemingly, because 

there are not high-profile people involved in it, and too many prosecutors don’t seem to want to prosecute things unless they are 

going to get some good publicity about it. 

Our briefing paper also says the California Secretary of State reported in 1998 that 2,000 to 3,000 of the individuals summoned for 

jury duty in Orange County each month claimed an exemption 

from jury service because they were not U.S. citizens. But these individuals were summoned from the voter registration list. It seems 

to me that if that kind of thing is happening in that one county, 

this is a much bigger problem than perhaps some people have said 

here today. 

Mr. von Spakovsky, I know you wrote a book about this, I think, 

at one point. Now, in one of our briefing things it says that voter 

fraud could be dramatically reduced if Federal, State, and local 

governments simply share the information they already obtain regarding citizenship status. Do you agree with that? And what 

would be the No. 1 thing that you think we could do that is not 

being done now, or should be done that is not being done now? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Require DHS to put in an easily checked 

system that allows the Secretaries of State, such as the gentlemen 

here today, to run data comparisons between their State voter registration lists and DHS records, similar to what, frankly, the State 

of Kansas is already now doing with a number of other States, 

where they are doing data comparisons to find people who have 

registered in multiple States. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, it just seems a shame to me that this is a 

violation of Federal criminal law, and a lot of people just slough it 

off as if it is really not anything too bad, so we are not going to 

do anything about it. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman yields back. 

We are happy to welcome Mr. Castro from Texas, who is not on 

the committee, but asked to be waived on, and I will now recognize 

you for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you, Chairman DeSantis, and thank you for 

the courtesy of allowing me to be here. This is an issue that I take 

great interest in. I served in the Texas legislature when the legislature passed the Texas voter ID law. It was around the same time 

that redistricting plan was passed in Texas, which a Federal court 

found intentionally discriminated against minorities in Texas, African-Americans and Hispanics. So I apologize, like all of us who 

have been running around, I may have a few questions over which 

you have already tread. 

But let me ask each of you very quickly what was the participation rate in each of your States for the 2014 mid-term elections? 

Just a number real quick, or ballpark. 
64 

Mr. HUSTED. Thirty-nine percent. 

Mr. KOBACH. Our participation rate was 51 percent. And I would 

note that that increased from 50 percent in our previous non-Presidential election—— 

Mr. CASTRO. OK. No, no, that is fine. 

Mr. KOBACH. And we put photo ID in place is my point. And the 

number went up. 

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. I don’t mean to make an argument of it; I just 

need a number. 

Mr. KOBACH. Just thought you might want to know. 

Mr. CASTRO. Fifty-one percent? 

Sir, what was yours? 

Mr. DUNLAP. It was 60.9 percent of voter age eligible. 

Mr. CASTRO. OK, so somewhere between 39 and 60? And which 

of your States has voter ID laws in effect now? 

Mr. KOBACH. In Kansas we have photo ID and proof of citizenship. 

Mr. CASTRO. OK. 

Mr. HUSTED. In Ohio we use the Federal standard. 

Mr. CASTRO. So did you pass a State voter ID law or not? 

Mr. HUSTED. We have an ID law, but not a strict photo ID law, 

so you could use bank Statements and another type of document. 

Mr. CASTRO. Certainly, Mr. Dunlap, would you agree that when 

there is photo ID passed or voter ID passed there are some legitimate voters who are not going to be able to vote because they don’t 

have the ID with them? 

Mr. DUNLAP. That is precisely why the Maine legislature rejected 

that very piece of legislation and why the study committee said 

that it would be a disenfranchising force. We do require photo ID 

to register to vote, but not to access an actual ballot at the polls. 

Mr. CASTRO. And do you know of any estimates about the percentage of people that might be denied their legitimate right to 

vote because of these laws? 

Mr. DUNLAP. It would probably be fairly significant. It could run 

5 to 10 percent. 

Mr. CASTRO. OK. So let me ask any of you this: Do you think 

that the argument here is that the President’s executive action 

may cause undocumented folks to vote? Do you think these folks 

are more patriotic than, in Kansas, 61 percent of your Kansans? I 

guess what I mean to say is you really think that these folks are 

so patriotic and so wanting to go vote that they want so much to 

go vote more than 61 percent of the Kansans who didn’t want to 

go vote? 

Mr. KOBACH. Let me tell you a story about a specific individual. 

Mr. CASTRO. No, please answer my question. If you are going to, 

yes or no? 

Mr. KOBACH. It is directly in answer to your question. These individuals may vote for some of the same reasons that you are suggesting. A woman in Wichita, an alien, voted—— 

Mr. CASTRO. Do you think—I need to reclaim my time. 

Mr. KOBACH. She voted multiple times. She was a green card 

holder with an application for U.S. citizenship—— 

Mr. CASTRO. Mr. Chairman, I asked a direct question for which 

the witness won’t give me a direct answer. 
65 

Mr. KOBACH. I am trying to answer your question. The answer 

is she wanted her U.S. citizenship application and she said, when 

asked, she voted as a green card holder because she thought it 

would increase the changes of her becoming and accepted as a U.S. 

citizenship. So it was an error. 

Mr. CASTRO. But, Mr. Kobach, you believe that—— 

Mr. KOBACH. So many are motivated to vote. 

Mr. CASTRO [continuing]. There are so many undocumented folks 

there who just want to vote so much in Kansas that this is going 

to be a problem? 

Mr. KOBACH. Some, like her, are in error, and they think voting 

will help them. Others are manipulated, like those in Seward 

County, Kansas, in my written testimony, but evidently you 

haven’t looked at it. 

Mr. CASTRO. OK, so you feel there are so more patriotic than 61 

percent of your Kansas out there, that they are just dying to go 

vote. OK. 

Mr. KOBACH. I doubt that the participation rate would exceed 61 

percent. 

Mr. CASTRO. Now, let me ask you this. 

Mr. Dunlap, do you think that there are more people who are 

going to be legitimately disenfranchised, Americans, legitimate voters who have the right to vote, disenfranchised by laws passed in 

Kansas and other places, or are there going to be more undocumented folks who actually turn out and vote? Which number do 

you think would be higher? 

Mr. DUNLAP. Those denied access to the process, sir. 

Mr. CASTRO. Yet, these were laws that were very graciously 

passed in places like Kansas and Tennessee, which the Government Accounting Office has said cost the vote for a lot of people. 

I know you have disputed that report, but the GAO has said that 

it was solid and credible. 

Mr. KOBACH. The GAO report was before the 2014 election. We 

now have empirical evidence that the voter participation went up 

after we put photo ID in. 

Mr. CASTRO. So you think that putting roadblocks in front of people is OK, right, even though legitimate voters, everybody agrees 

that are going to be some legitimate voters who aren’t going to be 

able to vote. Even you agree with that, right? 

Mr. KOBACH. No, I don’t agree with that. 

Mr. CASTRO. Not a single legitimate voter is going—— 

Mr. KOBACH. Not a single one. We have been unable to find a 

single person—— 

Mr. CASTRO. Wow. That is a remarkable answer, that you won’t 

even admit a single person is not going to be able to vote. 

Mr. KOBACH. Every person can get a free non-photo ID—— 

Mr. CASTRO. So there are going to be more legitimate people, 

right, who can vote, there are going to be more legitimate people 

that can vote because of the laws that you all passed versus these 

undocumented folks that you are worried about today. 

Mr. KOBACH. Not a single U.S. citizen or other legitimate voter, 

I assume you are talking about someone who didn’t bring their 

driver’s license with them. 

Mr. CASTRO. No. 
66 

Mr. KOBACH. Not a single legitimate voter has been denied the 

right to vote in Kansas, and we have many cases—— 

Mr. CASTRO. Mr. Kobach, you are being unreasonable. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, could I just do one quick question 

for Mr. Kobach? 

Mr. DESANTIS. The chair recognizes the gentleman. 

Mr. JORDAN. I just want to be clear. It was tough for us to hear 

exactly what you said. So in the 2010 non-Presidential election you 

had a percentage of Kansas that showed up and voted. Between 

2010 and 2014 you implemented a photo ID requirement. And if I 

heard you, I think you said in 2014 the percent of Kansas who 

showed up to vote went up, is that accurate? 

Mr. KOBACH. That is accurate. The percentage went up and the 

raw number of voters who voted in 2014 set an all-time State 

record, and that, again, was after we implemented a photo ID requirement. 

Mr. JORDAN. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The ranking member, the chair recognizes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a report here entitled, Truth in Immigration: The Myth of Widespread Non-Citizen 

Voting, by the Maldef Legal Defense and Education Fund, that I 

would ask to have submitted to the record. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Without objection, it will be so entered. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, let me thank the witnesses for your time 

and providing your input. I think part of the issue that we are seeing emanating from what the President did is we are really in unchartered law. I mean, this is kind of a law-free zone. The work 

permits that are issued are not contemplated by the statute; the 

different benefits have never been passed by Congress. So this is 

going to trickle down to how that new status that has been created 

by executive fiat is going to interact with State laws, and I think 

it is going to be confusing and I think that the President was 

wrong to do what he did, and I don’t think that that is how the 

system is supposed to operate. 

But I do appreciate all of you for coming here today. 

This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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