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"there has never been evidence to support the idea that noncitizens register and vote in anything but microscopic numbers."[1]

"essentially nonexistant"[2]

List of audits and studies of improper noncitizen voting in the U.S.

[edit]
(Mostly) completed audits and studies of improper noncitizen voting
State/Study Status Partisan audit 'Possible noncitizens' Year(s) studied Noncitizens on voter rolls ...who voted Referred for possible prosecution (convicted) Registered voters Votes cast % on rolls % voted %

referred for possible prosecution

% convicted Ref
KS Law blocked by suit in 2018 Y 2015-2018 3 (3) 1,800,000 0.00017% 0.00017% [3]
FL Announced just before midterms Y 180,000 2014 85 1 (?) 14,000,000 0.0006% 0.000007% [4][5]
NC N 2016 41* 19 (16) w/ 3 dismissed 4,800,000 0.0009% 0.0004% 0.0003% [6][7]
NC N 2017 0 4.8m ('16) 0 [8]
NC N 2018 1 (?) 4.8m ('16) 0.00002% [8]
NC N 2020 1 (?) 4.8m ('16) 0.00002% [8]
WV 2019 1 1,200,000 0.00008% [9]
PA 544 votes, then fixed DMV online forms[10] 2000-2017 93,000,000 0.0006% [9]
NC N 2021 1 (?) 4.8m ('16) 0.00002% [8]
NC N 2022 0 4.8m ('16) 0 [8]
Brennan

Center

N 2016 30 (?) 23,500,000 0.0001% [6][11]
GA Just cites jury duty forms[12] (which tend to be unreliable) Y 156 2023-2024? 20^ 9^ 20 (?) 8,200,000 0.00025% 0.0001% [13]
OR Glitch fixed N 1200 2024 (Sept-Oct) 0-5 3,300,000 0-0.00015% [14][15]
MN 2015-2024 (3) 13.4 million .00002% [16]

*all legal residents, some had been in the country for 50 years and one thought they were a citizen because they married a citizen.

^Jury duty data alone is not super reliable - should be verified before reported as fact (as unfortunately much of the media has done without question)

Partial audits of improper noncitizen voting (MAY NEED REPORTING/FOIA TO GET FINAL #'s)
State/Study Status Partisan audit 'Possible noncitizens' Year(s) studied Noncitizens on voter rolls ...who voted Referred for possible prosecution (convicted) Registered voters Votes cast % on rolls % voted %

referred for possible prosecution

% convicted Ref
IA According to out-of-date data from checking a box at DMV - common sources of mistakes and needs verification Y 150[17]

at most 12% of ~2000[18]

?? 67? 87? (?) 2,300,000 [17]
OH Federal+state, jury pool data[19] Y 597 2008-2020 (Aug 2024) 6 indicted[20] (?) 8,000,000 0.000075% ? [21]
GA Lawsuit unsuccessful Y 1,634 blocked form registering (note: this is a major outlier and likely voter suppression) 1997-2022 0 0 0 8,000,000 0 [6][7]
AZ (Richman) DMV data, Lawsuit in appeal Y 1,934 (DMV) (Highly likely another outlier overestimate by Richman) 2023 [22][23][24]
TX 9 citizens found so far, vast majority had no voting history[25][26] Y 6,500 (lawsuit pending) 2024 (Aug) 1930 (?) [26][25]
TX Blocked by lawsuit after many found to be naturalized citizens Y 98,000 (lawsuit stopped it) 2019 0 0 0 [27][28][29][21]
TN Blocked by lawsuit, using DMV data as old as 2019[30] Y 14,375 (lawsuit stopped it) 2024 (July) [31]
AL Blocked after 2000 were proved to be citizens[32][30][33] Y 3,251 (lawsuit stopped it) 2024 (Aug) 3,000,000 [34][21][35][36]
VA DMV data+SAVE[19][33][37], no evidence found that any noncitizens have tried to vote during Youngkin's term[38] (some citizens forgot to check the box, etc.). Poor form design. Y 6,303 (blocked by Judge + unanimous appeals court)[39][2] then upheld by 6 Republican Supreme Court justices.[19] Most were paperwork errors[38] 2024 (Aug 7) [40]

Voter roll maintenance efforts

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  • How many were stopped by lawsuits?
  • What percentage of citizens are removed vs. noncitizens?
    • For example, for databases that try and identify double voters remove 200-300 single voters for every double voter they catch
  • Efforts to remove voters amount to voter suppression of newly naturalized citizens who make up many of the voter removed in purges targeting noncitizens because they used to be noncitizens and may still appear as such on outdated database.[36]

DMV data

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Ways that it is unreliable on its own

  • People forget to check a box saying they are a citizen or check the wrong box by accident[41]
  • People do not report their citizenship status to the DMV when they are naturalized until their next DMV appointment

Jury duty

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Issues with using as evidence of noncitizen voting:

  • Outdated[42]
  • Box checked...
    • ...by accident, for example they might have moved and checked it thinking that they weren't a citizen of that county instead of the box indicating that they had moved[25]
    • ...to try and get out of jury duty[41]
  • Examples
    • 2012 Florida[43]
      • Of 100 people excused from jury duty for checking the noncitizen box, 35 were confirmed to have documentary proof of citizenship (NBC did not follow-up on the other 65)
    • 2024 Georgia[12]
      • Needs update/confirmation on how many of the 20 are actually noncitizens vs. checked the wrong box

North Carolina approach

[edit]

North Carolina has a nonpartisan board of electors that makes it one of the most reliable sources of noncitizen voting audits. Most audits are done by partisan (Republican) officials who tend to release large possible estimates that are often not updated to provide the actual numbers of noncitizens who voted.

North Carolina receives very few, if any, noncitizens on the voting rolls each year.[44]

Citizenship verification process in North Carolina as of 2017[45]

Extrapolating to other contexts

[edit]
Possible to estimate citizenship using NC data where final noncitizen numbers have not been published?
DMV After checking SAVE database[46] Still unconfirmed After excluding citizens who do not provide documentation
2023 AZ noncitizens registered 1,934 46 11-12 ?
GA 1997-2022 (What data was used?) 1,634 39 10 ?

Possible solutions

[edit]

Addressing gaps in media coverage

[edit]

Many instances of media falling Republican elected official talking points who may not be acting in good faith by reporting on what is provided that is done in a partisan way (as if it was done in a nonpartisan way) such as:

1) "Potential noncitizen number", which has been shown over and over to be 2-4 orders of magnitude (100-10,000x) larger than the actual number of confirmed noncitizens on the roles or who voted. This is a number, like the 'referred for prosecution' number that is entirely arbitrary and easily inflated to drive a narrative.

2) Not independently verifying claims. For example, Georgia recently claimed that it found 9 noncitizens who had voted, citing only their jury forms as evidence of their citizenship status, despite this not being a reliable way to verify citizenship as some people lie to get out of jury duty or make a mistake.

3) Not following-up on crucial testimony in a case that has widespread impacts on voter suppression, such as Arizona's 2023 case where a very unreliable and widely discredited academic made some estimates that have received very little scrutiny and could contribute to another judge falling for numbers that do not align with any other figures found in any other state.

Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database and Social Security Administration database

[edit]

Keep updated

[edit]

The SAVE database is not updated in a timely manner when noncitizens become naturalized citizens. Improving the quality of the database would make identifying noncitizen voters much easier and make DPOC even more unnecessary while reducing administrative costs and time.

Ensure election officials can submit requests easily

[edit]

This would help prevent a lot of naturalized citizens from having to provide DPOC as well as potentially help avoid other time-consuming and potentially vote-

suppressing errors for both staff and citizens.

Databases used
States SAVE SSA DMV
Arizona [47]
Colorado [48]
Florida
Georgia
Mississippi [49]
North Carolina [44] [44]
Iowa
Virginia
Lack of citizenship documentation by political party (2024)[50][51]

Documentary proof of citizenship

[edit]

Many Americans (estimated at 9%) do not have easy or any access to proof of citizenship documents. Audits that require some citizens to provide this could result in citizens not voting. How many citizens during one of the audits above might drop out of the process or registering or confirming registration as a result of that requirement placed on them?

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Parks, Miles (October 3, 2024). "Driven by Republicans, most Americans are concerned about fraud in the 2024 election". NPR.
  2. ^ a b Jansen, Bart; Groppe, Maureen (October 28, 2024). "Virginia asks Supreme Court to allow it to purge suspected noncitizens from its voter rolls". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2024-10-28.
  3. ^ Lah, Kyung; Gajilan, A. Chris (2018-11-01). "The war on voting rights: Will your ballot count?". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-29.
  4. ^ Evon, Dan (2018-11-16). "Were 53,000 Dead People Found on Florida's Voter Rolls?". Snopes. Archived from the original on September 25, 2024. Retrieved 2024-09-19. The initial list of 180,000 names was whittled to 2,625, according to the Florida Department of State. The state then checked a federal database and stated it found 207 noncitizens on the rolls (not necessarily voting but on the rolls). That list was sent to county election supervisors to check and it also turned out to contain errors. An Aug. 1, 2012, state elections document showed only 85 noncitizens were ultimately removed from the rolls out of a total of about 12 million voters at that time.
  5. ^ Beitsch, Rebecca; Bernal, Rafael (2024-05-12). "Speaker Johnson's 'intuition' on illegal voting clashes with data". The Hill. Retrieved 2024-09-19.
  6. ^ a b c Riccardi, Nicholas (2024-04-12). "Noncitizen voting isn't an issue in federal elections, regardless of conspiracy theories. Here's why". AP News. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  7. ^ a b Schouten, Fredreka; Sneed, Tierney (2024-07-10). "Trump-aligned Republicans make noncitizen voting – already illegal in federal elections – a top 2024 target". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  8. ^ a b c d e Specht, Paul. "Are noncitizens straining North Carolina services? Here are the facts". @politifact. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  9. ^ a b Fessler, Pam (February 26, 2019). "Some Noncitizens Do Wind Up Registered To Vote, But Usually Not On Purpose". NPR.
  10. ^ Timm, Jane C. (September 19, 2024). "Battleground state election officials push back against noncitizen voting 'myth'". NBC News.
  11. ^ Keith, Douglas; Pérez, Myrna (May 5, 2017). "Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions | Brennan Center for Justice". www.brennancenter.org. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  12. ^ a b Rubin, Olivia (October 23, 2024). "Georgia voter roll audit finds only 20 noncitizens out of 8 million registered voters". ABC News. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  13. ^ Murray, Sara; Cohen, Zachary; Morris, Jason; Valencia, Nick (2024-10-23). "Georgia's Republican secretary of state finds just 20 noncitizens registered to vote out of 8.2 million". CNN. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  14. ^ Joffe-Block, Jude; Parks, Miles (October 18, 2024). "How Republicans mainstreamed the baseless idea of noncitizen voting in 2024". NPR. Exaggerated claims about noncitizens committing voter fraud actually go back to the 1800s. And experts say they usually spike during periods of nonwhite immigration due to fears about how the influx of people will change the country.
  15. ^ Rush, Claire (2024-09-24). "Oregon removes over 1,200 voters from rolls for failing to provide proof of citizenship". AP News. Retrieved 2024-10-15.
  16. ^ https://www.npr.org/2024/11/02/nx-s1-5117812/voter-list-data-election-claims
  17. ^ a b Fingerhut, Hannah (2024-10-23). "Iowa finds several dozen instances of noncitizens voting in a past election". AP News. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  18. ^ Gruber-Miller, Stephen. "Iowa can challenge ballots of 2,000 voters on flawed noncitizen list, judge says". The Des Moines Register. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  19. ^ a b c Hills, Sophie; Bryant, Christa Case (September 27, 2024). "Are noncitizens really voting in US elections?". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  20. ^ "One of six Ohioans just indicted for illegal voting as a non-citizen has been dead nearly two years". Ideastream Public Media. 2024-10-24. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  21. ^ a b c Lieb, David (2024-09-02). "Noncitizen voting is extremely rare, yet Republicans are making it a major election concern". Associated Press. Retrieved 2024-09-27 – via PBS News.
  22. ^ Kessler, Glenn (2024-03-06). "Opinion: The truth about noncitizen voting in federal elections". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2024-04-13. Retrieved 2024-04-21. There is scattered evidence of noncitizens voting in federal elections — sometime by mistake (such as erroneously thinking they were eligible while getting a driver's license) but also with nefarious intent ... Given the paucity of evidence of noncitizen voting, many election researchers have long said that there was little to support the idea that noncitizen voting had ever affected the outcome of a major election. But that does not necessarily prove that the phenomenon does not happen.
  23. ^ Richman, Jesse (October 13, 2023). "EXPERT REPORT OF JESSE T. RICHMAN". www.documentcloud.org. Retrieved 2024-09-29.
  24. ^ Richman, Jesse (October 28, 2023). "Supplemental to EXPERT REPORT OF JESSE T. RICHMAN". www.documentcloud.org. Retrieved 2024-09-29. The presence of nearly 1,800 individuals who are on the active voter roll but appear to have indicated to ADOT (at the time that they registered to vote or after) that they were not a citizen speaks to the potential merits of legislation aimed at evaluating whether these individuals are currently non-citizens. It speaks to the potential merits of engaging in further database matching (e.g. examination of the SAVE database) in order to clarify further the citizenship status of these individuals as contemplated in the legislation being litigated in this case. This also speaks to the potential merits of requesting that these individuals provide additional information to clarify their current citizenship status, as might occur under the legislation being litigated in this case if additional database matching proved unable to resolve the question of their citizenship status. As I noted in my previous report, further investigation could help to reduce the number of non-citizens registered to vote in Arizona or increase public confidence in Arizona elections, or both.
  25. ^ a b c Davila, Vianna; Churchill, Lexi; Barragán, James; Contreras, Natalia (2024-10-15). "Greg Abbott Boasted That Texas Removed 6,500 Noncitizens From Its Voter Rolls. That Number Was Likely Inflated". ProPublica. Retrieved 2024-10-15.
  26. ^ a b Acevedo, Nicole (2024-08-29). "Texas voter purge may be sending a chilling message, lawmakers and advocates warn". NBC News. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  27. ^ Fessler, Pam (February 26, 2019). "Some Noncitizens Do Wind Up Registered To Vote, But Usually Not On Purpose". NPR.
  28. ^ Salinas II, Juan; Contreras, Natalia (2024-08-27). "Election experts cautious as Abbott touts voter roll purge". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  29. ^ Ura, Alexa (2019-04-26). "Texas will end its botched voter citizenship review and rescind its list of flagged voters". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  30. ^ a b Leingang, Rachel; Levine, Sam (2024-10-03). "Republicans' non-citizen voting myth sets stage to claim stolen election". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
  31. ^ Mattise, Jonathan; Kruesi, Kimberlee (2024-07-17). "Tennessee won't purge voter rolls of people who disregard a letter asking them to prove citizenship". AP News. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
  32. ^ Riddle, Safiyah (2024-10-16). "A federal judge halts an Alabama program that purged thousands of legal voters". AP News. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  33. ^ a b Barakat, Matthew (2024-10-23). "More than 1,600 voters have registration revoked under Virginia program targeting noncitizens". AP News. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
  34. ^ Riddle, Safiyah (2024-08-15). "Alabama election officials make voter registration inactive for thousands of potential noncitizens". AP News. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  35. ^ Wang, Hansi Lo (September 27, 2024). "Justice Department sues Alabama, claiming it purged voters too close to the election". NPR.
  36. ^ a b Timm, Jane C. (August 29, 2024). "GOP crackdowns on noncitizen voting ensnare newly naturalized Americans". NBC News.
  37. ^ Joffe-Block, Jude (October 30, 2024). "U.S. citizens are among the voters removed in Virginia's controversial purge". NPR.
  38. ^ a b Schneider, Gregory S.; Vozzella, Laura (October 9, 2024). "Youngkin stokes fear of vast noncitizen voting in Virginia. Records don't show it". Washington Post.
  39. ^ Montellaro, Zach (October 25, 2024). "Federal judge halts Virginia voter purge; Youngkin launches appeal". Politico.
  40. ^ Gamboa, Suzanne (2024-08-23). "A Virginia voter roll purge sparks renewed rhetoric over 'non-citizens' casting ballots". NBC News. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
  41. ^ a b Olson, Walter (April 11, 2024). "Commentary: The Right's Bogus Claims about Noncitizen Voting Fraud". Cato Institute. Retrieved 2024-10-04. Aside from larger databases, administrators may (for example) obtain from court authorities a list of persons who ask to be excused from jury duty on the grounds that they are not citizens. Not infrequently these people turn out to have been fibbing to the court clerk to get out of jury service and are in fact native-born citizens—thus generating a false positive. Other false positive matches can arise because someone omits to check the 'citizen' box on a driver's license application even though they are in fact a citizen, or because databases take a while to catch up after someone becomes a U.S. citizen through naturalization.
    The more people believe elections are rigged, the more they are likely to turn their discontents in a direction other than electoral politics. Some will go the passive route of resignation, withdrawing from civic involvements, making themselves the perfect subjects for strongman rule. Others will turn to militia activity or outright violence.
  42. ^ Schouten, Fredreka (2024-03-29). "In quest to change voting rules, Republicans push ballot measures in key battleground states". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
  43. ^ Hasen, Richard L. (2020). Election meltdown: dirty tricks, distrust, and the threat to American democracy. Yale University Press. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, [2020]. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-300-24819-7. 100 people were excused from jury duty because they were not citizens, but yet who were on the voting rolls. But he admitted on cross-examination that he had not told the court about a follow-up investigation, which showed that at least 35 people on NBC's list in fact had documentary proof of citizenship. (While it does not appear that NBC followed-up with the others, in 2012, the Florida secretary of state released a list of 180,000 potential noncitizens to be considered for purging. After investigation, just 85 noncitizens were removed from voting rolls as noncitizens.
  44. ^ a b c "How does North Carolina ensure that only U.S. citizens vote?". FAQ: Voter Registration | NCSBE. Retrieved 2024-09-29. Typically, there are very few, if any, cases of noncitizen registration or voting referred for prosecution statewide each year, which demonstrates how infrequent it is for noncitizens to register or vote.
  45. ^ "Post-Election Audit Report: General Election 2016" (PDF). North Carolina State Board of Elections. April 21, 2017. p. Appendix Pages 1-2. Also, due to timing issues and the fact that DMV data is generally updated only when licenses are issued, DMV data alone is not reliable for this purpose either...
    If SAVE indicates a voter is a non-citizen, NCSBE opens a case file and attempts to contact the voter to determine citizenship status through mailings and interviews. Because of the unreliability of citizenship data, voters who appear to be non-citizens — where both data sources indicate non-citizenship status — are not removed from the rolls, absent independent confirmation that they are not citizens. In fact, approximately three-quarters of those who subsequently provide proof of U.S. citizenship continued to appear as non-citizens in the SAVE database.
  46. ^ Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements Database
  47. ^ "Using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program for Voter Eligibility Verification". American Immigration Council. 2012-08-02. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  48. ^ Kim, Caitlyn (October 18, 2024). "How does Colorado keep noncitizens and dead people from voting?". Rocky Mountain PBS. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  49. ^ Harrison, Bobby (2022-06-01). "Legislature repeals law making it more difficult for naturalized citizens to vote; lawsuit dropped". Mississippi Today. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  50. ^ Levine, Sam (2024-06-12). "Millions of US voters lack access to documents to prove citizenship". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
  51. ^ Who Lacks ID in America Today? An Exploration of Voter ID Access, Barriers, and Knowledge (June 2024)

Further reading

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