Thread: GA: WSB Investigates Non-Citizens Voting in Elections

2 Investigates: Non-Citizens Voting In Georgia Elections
Local Leaders Admit To Not Keeping Accurate Records

Posted: 5:49 pm EDT October 28, 2010Updated: 8:09 pm EDT October 28, 2010

ATLANTA -- A Channel 2 Action News investigation found at least three dozen non-United States citizens on Georgia's voter rolls, seven of whom actually voted in our elections.

The total numbers could be as high as 605 non-citizens registered to vote, and 220 who voted. State leaders could not confirm the exact numbers because, as our investigation found, no one keeps accurate data of non-citizens who live here.

"It doesn't surprise me, but it does concern me. Obviously we don't want one single person canceling somebody's vote out much less 250," said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer teamed up with reporters from the Atlanta Journal Constitution to compare the state's voter rolls with county records of non-citizens.

Kemp said Georgia will now force would-be voters to prove they're a citizen when registering and the state will verify that, but the state used to just trust that voters were telling the truth.

"Well I don't know if I had a right to go and vote, they told me to go and vote and I did," said Jamaican citizen Roselda Seals.

She moved to Louisiana in 1991 and to DeKalb County in 2002. She showed us her permanent resident green card, but admitted she voted in Georgia and Louisiana elections.

When Fleischer asked if she was aware she needed to be a U.S. citizen to vote legally, Seals replied, "I don't know ma'am, I don't know. They send me papers to vote and I vote."

Channel 2 Action News requested data from all 159 Georgia counties, for every non-U.S. citizen excused from jury duty and booked into jail. Click to see Fleischer's complete findings posted below.

Most outlying counties don't even keep those records, but within the metro area we found more than 600 people registered to vote and listed as non-U.S. citizens. 220 of them appear to have voted.

"A bad slip in the American system. Everyone thinks it's perfect, obviously it's not," said Dominic Brannigan, a British citizen who is on the voter rolls in Fulton County.

He's never voted, but started receiving voter registration cards in the mail after renewing his drivers’ license.

When asked if Brannigan might have accidentally registered through Georgia's motor voter program, he replied, "I'm 110 percent certain I did not do that."

Georgia's Department of Driver Services began tracking citizenship in 2006 and a procedural change this year makes it so non-citizens aren't even asked if they want to register to vote.

But since drivers only renew their license every 10 years, the list of non-citizens won't be accurate until 2016.

"There's definitely a period of time where, short of contacting every customer, there's not a way to verify every single person," said DDS attorney Jennifer Ammons.

And our investigation proved even counties who claim to keep those records, can get it wrong. Twenty of the voters we reached, told us they are now U.S. citizens.

"Everybody has a voice and it's important that my voice do get heard," said Pinky Williams, whose name was on a Gwinnett County list, despite her gaining U.S. citizenship in 2007.

As a result of a similar investigation in 2008 where Channel 2 Action News exposed non-citizens voting in Cobb County, the state passed legislation requiring counties to submit the names of anyone excused from jury duty for not being a citizen each month, starting in January 2010.

Only half of the counties have complied, but 68 people have already been taken off the voter rolls, eight of them had voted.

Secretary of State Kemp said, "We're by no means perfect, and nobody else is, but we want to try to be as perfect as we can.

His office has investigated several cases and determined most of the non-citizens became registered when getting a drivers’ license. No one could tell Fleischer whether those were mistakes or fraud.

Under the new policy there will now be a record of how the driver fills out that form, so everyone involved can be held accountable.

WITH 3:30 Video and Chart

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/25555958/detail.html

Non-citizens who voted should be reported to ICE. Voting when you are a non-citizen is a deportable offense.

Need your help here please

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-216669.html