Cuccinelli: Radical Left Sees Border Crisis as Voter Registration Line

Cuccinelli: Radical Left Sees Border Crisis as Voter Registration Line

BY CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON AND JAN JEKIELEK
April 22, 2021Updated: April 22, 2021

The current administration’s actions to diminish border security measures and promise amnesty to illegal immigrants, coupled with Congress’s new election reform legislation, is directly related to future votes for the Democratic Party, according to Ken Cuccinelli, former acting deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

“The radical left looks at that border and they see a voter registration line. And they’re very confident—I think incorrectly—but they’re very confident that these are future votes for their radical left agenda,” Cuccinelli told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program on April 20.

A study conducted by Old Dominion University in Virginia suggests that illegal immigrants vote 80 percent Democratic and 20 percent Republican.

The election reform legislation, H.R.1, also known as the “For the People Act,” was passed by the House on March 3.

The bill would federalize elections, overriding the current constitutional mandate that states choose the “manner, times, and places” of elections. H.R.1 would also make permanent many of the election reforms adopted as temporary measures in 2020 by a handful of states in response to the pandemic.

The election reforms include radically expanded mail-in, early, and absentee voting, as well as automatic, online, and same-day voter registration with minimal verification. It would also remove voter identification requirements in the 36 states that have them.

“Let me play this out for you: Virginia’s polls are open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. I can go to poll number one at 6 a.m. and say, ‘Hi, I’m Ken

Jones, I want to register to vote,'” Cuccinelli said.

“‘OK, sign here, Ken Jones.’ And I vote. I go to the next poll, saying, ‘I’m Ken Smith, I want to register to vote.’

“How does anybody at the second poll know that I have registered to vote only an hour before at a different poll?”

The automatic registration provisions in the new legislation would shepherd “millions of these folks crossing the border” onto the voter rolls in the next couple of years, Cuccinelli said.

“They’re designing a system that is so easy to cheat … that one can only conclude that’s the purpose,” he said.

Illegal border crossings are currently on a trajectory to be the highest in 20 years. However, the number of illegal aliens that will stay in the United States—rather than being quickly returned to Mexico, as was the case 20 years ago—is unprecedented.

Currently, only citizens of the United States are legally allowed to vote. While the bill doesn’t make it legal for illegal immigrants or noncitizens to vote, it does require agencies to register to vote “all eligible individuals served by that agency” unless the individual opts out.

For example, 13 states and the District of Columbia currently allow for illegal aliens to possess driver’s licenses. Those people would automatically be placed on the voter rolls and any penalty they would have faced for voting would be eliminated.

“By eliminating the penalties, they essentially make it legal for illegals to vote,” Cuccinelli said. Staff within motor vehicle agency offices will also be reluctant to ask people if they’re eligible to vote, he said.

“The radical leftists put a criminal provision in the bill—a new federal felony—for any state or local official who in any way impairs, impedes, intimidates anyone from registering to vote, or from exercising their voting rights—which sounds on its face reasonable, except when you consider how politicized their prosecutions have gotten,” he said.

Cuccinelli said the election reform laws are the Democrats’ “path to maintain power for a long period of time, and they view illegal immigrants as part of the cannon fodder in that plan.”

The passage of the companion bill in the Senate, S.1, remains uncertain. If Republicans filibuster the proposal, as seems likely, Senate rules require 60 votes to “invoke cloture,” which limits debate to 30 hours and then requires a vote on final passage.

As the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, Cuccinelli is actively lobbying against S.1, while encouraging more election transparency and security.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/cuccin...e_3787436.html