Source: http://www.fairus.org/issue/societal-impact/noncitizens-voting-violations-and-us-elections?fbclid=IwAR1uYRiUS0DWtorpn9cur0iyyfSQNpT1gwZGfjHNKvgPHc52vvqTOBsN-XU
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 09:04:59+00:00

Document:
The United States sends election monitors around the world to help discourage fraudulent balloting. But, here at home, it has largely turned a blind eye to the possibility that fraudulent voting by noncitizens could influence the outcome of an election. Our voter registration system is susceptible to abuse by noncitizens.
In addition, noncitizens and illegal aliens are counted when apportioning congressional districts and when allocating state electors under the Electoral College. This means noncitizens play a role in determining how many congressional representatives a state has and exert an indirect influence on presidential elections.
Mass immigration has had a significant effect on American electoral politics. Despite the fact that it is a crime for aliens to vote in federal elections, noncitizens and illegal aliens are counted when apportioning congressional districts. 1 This means that areas with large numbers of illegal alien residents gain additional representatives in Congress.
Several past elections – for the presidency and other offices – have been extremely close. Accordingly, ballots cast by noncitizen voters have the potential to improperly alter the outcome of elections. Consider how close the 2000 presidential election was. Could the outcome have been affected by noncitizen voting? The answer is yes.
Elections in the United States are governed by a complicated mix of federal, state, and municipal election laws. As a rule, noncitizens are prohibited from voting and are subject to criminal penalties if they do.
Marking a disturbing new trend, several municipalities in Maryland have begun allowing noncitizens to vote in town elections; and the City of Chicago now allows noncitizen voting in school advisory council elections.8 To date, no state has extended noncitizen voting beyond municipal elections. This, however, remains a major area of concern. State efforts to extend the franchise to noncitizens undermine the rule of law; blur the distinctions between citizens and noncitizens; and render U.S. elections susceptible to both fraud and foreign influence.
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 611, it is a crime – punishable by a fine and up to one year in prison – for an alien to vote in a federal election.
Pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1227, any alien who has voted in violation of any Federal, State, or local constitutional provision, statute, ordinance, or regulation is deportable.
Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg-10(2) any false statement concerning an applicant’s citizenship status that is made on a registration form submitted to election authorities is a crime.
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 911 knowing and willful false assertions of United States citizenship in order to vote are punishable by up to three years in prison.
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f) it is a criminal offense for an individual to make a false statement or claim that he or she is a citizen of the United States in order to register or to vote.
The intentions behind the Real ID Act also continue to be thwarted by certain provisions of the NVRA. These provisions, known as the “Motor-Voter Law,” require state departments of motor vehicles to act as voter registration proxies. The information supplied by license applicants doubles as voter registration information and the registration process has become nearly automatic. Because so many states continue to issue driver’s licenses to noncitizens, it is relatively easy for aliens to commit voter fraud through the Motor-Voter system. When renewing a driver’s license by mail, they simply check the boxes indicating that they wish to be registered as voters and affirming that they are a U.S. citizen. Most often, they are added to the voter rolls without any attempt to verify the applicant’s citizenship.
There have been a significant number of alien voter violations alleged in recent years. Yet, there appears to be a stunning lack of federal interest in this issue. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission published its last report on Election Crimes a decade ago in December 2006.14 This 23 page report mentioned noncitizen voting once, only to note that it had been addressed in media reports. The most recent version of the Department of Justice’s report Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses was issued in 2007.15 Ostensibly a manual addressing how the Justice Department handles federal election offenses it devotes only three and a half pages to noncitizen voting violations.
Reports of alien voter prosecutions are difficult to find. The Heritage Foundation notes that as few as 300 cases involving voter fraud have been successfully prosecuted since 2010.16 Apart from the aforementioned case in the Western District of New York, voter prosecution cases do not appear to be a priority for the Justice Department. The same appears to be true for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The ICE website lists a 2011 arrest of an illegal alien charged with voter fraud.17 No other election-related prosecutions appear to have been posted. A diligent search of the Internet will produce several accounts of state arrests for egregious instances of illegal voting but this is clearly not a prominent issue for state prosecutors.
Federal and state lack of interest in election offenses is not an indication that noncitizen voting is a minor problem. It is only an indication that election authorities are failing to prosecute violators. Inattention to the phenomenon of noncitizen voting and a failure to impose effective penalties against those who cast votes fraudulently has rendered laws against such activity a paper tiger, without deterrent effect. If the problem is allowed to continue, it will inevitably lead to questions about whether the results of U.S. elections truly reflect the political inclinations of the American people.
How Much Noncitizen Voting Is Going On?
There is widespread awareness that illegal immigration is a massive and growing problem in the United States. Estimates of the illegal population vary between 11 and 20 million. FAIR believes there are likely between 11 to 13 million illegal residents. In addition to the illegal aliens already in the country, the Census Bureau estimates that the illegal alien population is growing by a minimum of 500,000 per year.
If we take the mean of these three estimates -- 7.25 percent -- and apply it to just the 22 million non-citizen residents currently in the United States, then approximately 1.6 million non-citizens vote every year. According to the high and low estimates here, that number could be as high as 2.9 million (at 13 percent of 22 million), or as low as 528,000 (2.4 percent of 22 million). Both are unacceptably high numbers.
There is enough evidence of noncitizen voting to indicate that it is an ongoing problem that may have a significant effect on American electoral poitics. Due to the low risk of penalty, and the lack of effective controls, alien voting is easy. In states without ID requirements, the only check against noncitizens registering to vote is a box on the application form asking registrants to confirm they are U.S. citizens. Given the fact that this affirmation is rarely verified and few violators are ever prosecuted, it is a pointless exercise that does nothing to deter voter fraud. In states with voter ID requirements, the lack of a single, standardized document that demonstrates both identity and citizenship makes voter fraud all too easy.
If the United States wants to eliminate the possible appearance of elections determined by fraudulent voting, procedures must be adopted to verify the eligibility of new voter registrants, and to verify the identity of voters when they cast ballots, with the application of penalties for those who register and/or vote fraudulently. If there is no real penalty for illegal voting, it is unreasonable to expect that an “honor system” to keep ineligible persons from voting will be effective.
The good news is that the problem could be relatively easily addressed through true compliance with the Real ID Act, the implementation of voter ID requirements for all federal, state and local elections, and the consistent use of an automated eligibility verification system like USCIS’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program which provides a fast, secure and efficient verification service for federal, state and local benefit-granting agencies to verify a benefit applicant’s immigration status or naturalized/derived citizenship.
 In Evenwel v. Abbot the Supreme Court of the United States held that both non-citizens (i.e., aliens lawfully present in the U.S.) and illegal aliens may be counted when apportioning congressional districts.
 See National Conference of State Legislatures at note 4.

References: § 611
 § 1227
 § 1973
 § 911
 § 1015
 v.