Hundreds of ‘Non-Citizen’ Voters Found in Philadelphia
Hundreds of ‘Non-Citizen’ Voters Found in PhiladelphiaP File Photo/Rick Bowmer
by BOB PRICE
20 Sep 2017Philadelphia, PA
A report from a Philadelphia city commissioner revealed that hundreds of non-citizens registered to vote in his city. At least 90 of them cast ballots.
Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt reported that the list came from “self-admitted non-citizens” who eventually canceled their voter registrations. However, those improperly obtained voter registration cards were used 227 times during elections held in 2006 and 2007, the Washington Times reported.
Pennsylvania law allows legal immigrants and long-term visitors to obtain driver licenses. Most of the improper registrations in this report came through driver’s license transactions managed by PennDOT.
“Thanks to federal law, the sign-up for both licenses and voter registration is often tied together,” the Washington newspaper reports.
Schmidt told reporters that if the state were to conduct a statewide study, they would likely find thousands of illegal voters who are both registered and casting illegal votes.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) carried out similar studies in Virginia and New Jersey this year.
“DMVs should never be in the business of offering voter registration to Green Card holders,” a PILF spokesman explained. “The time is now to have a substantive discussion about rethinking Motor Voter.”
The group cautioned that even if a non-citizen registers but does not actually vote, they are exposed to naturalization troubles or even deportation.
Breitbart News reported earlier this month about the negative impact of election day voter registration in New Hampshire where it appears there were enough potentially improper voter registrations and ballots cast to change the outcome of the very close senate race.
In the article, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach wrote:
According to statistics released by the Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, on the date of the general election in November 2016, there were 6,540 same-day registrants who registered to vote in New Hampshire using an out-of-statedriver’s license to prove their identity. In and of itself, that doesn’t prove that any fraud occurred – theoretically, each of those individuals could have been someone who recently moved to the State and had not yet had time to get a New Hampshire driver’s license. According to New Hampshire law, a new resident has 60 days to obtain a New Hampshire driver’s license.
So if those 6,540 voters were bona fide New Hampshire residents, they would get their driver’s license no later than January 7, 2017. However, the numbers tell a very different story. It turns out that, as of August 30, 2017 – nearly ten months after the election – only 1,014 of the 6,540 same-day registrants who registered with an out-of-state license had obtained a New Hampshire driver’s license. The other 5,526 individuals never obtained a New Hampshire driver’s license. And, of those 5,526, only 213 registered a vehicle in New Hampshire.
So 5,313 of those voters neither obtained a New Hampshire driver’s license nor registered a vehicle in New Hampshire. They have not followed the legal requirements for residents regarding driver’s licenses, and it appears that they are not actually residing in New Hampshire. It seems that they never were bona fide residents of the State.
5,513 is a big number – more than enough to swing two very important elections. The closest major election was the contest between incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte and challenger Maggie Hassan (D). Hassan won the election by a razor-thin marginof 1,017 votes. Those 5,313 fraudulent votes were more than enough to swing the election. If 59.2 percent or more of them went for Hassan, then the election was stolen through voter fraud. That’s likely, since the surrounding states are Democrat strongholds.
The Washington Times referenced one woman in Illinois who “claimed she was bamboozled into” checking the voter registration box when she applied for her driver’s license. She said the motor vehicle bureau employee told her it was “up to you” if she should check the box indicating she is a U.S. citizen. She then proceeded to vote illegally in at least one election.
“An appeals court earlier this year ruled that Ms. Fitzpatrick spoke English well enough that there was no confusion, and either knew, or should have known, that she wasn’t supposed to be voting,” the newspaper reported.
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act (commonly known as Motor Voter) prohibits officials from “saying anything that might discourage someone from registering.” This makes errors in the registration process more likely.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/...-philadelphia/
Philadelphia finds hundreds of illegal voters
227 non-citizen votes cast over last decade
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Updated: 10:26 p.m. on Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Hundreds of noncitizens were registered to vote in Philadelphia over the last decade, and at least 90 of them actually ended up casting ballots that should never have been allowed, City Commissioner Al Schmidt said Wednesday, adding more fuel to complaints of bogus voting in U.S. elections.
The voters are all self-admitted noncitizens who went back and canceled their registrations later — but not before casting illegal ballots a total of 227 times in elections in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Schmidt said.
He said most of those noncitizens signed up to vote at PennDOT, the state motor vehicles bureau, when they went to get a driver’s license. While legal residents and long-term visitors are allowed to hold licenses, they are not allowed to vote in federal elections — yet thanks to a federal law, the sign-up for both licenses and voter registration is often tied together.
“The current voter registration process at PennDOT is both harmful to election integrity and to members of the immigrant community seeking citizenship,” Mr. Schmidt said.
The data offers a boost to President Trump, who has claimed voters are tainted by noncitizens casting illegal ballots.
While Mr. Trump’s claims of millions of such votes have not been substantiated, Philadelphia’s data does show that fraudulent voting happens — contradicting the claims of voting rights activists who said it is so rare as to not be worth investigating.
Philadelphia’s numbers only look at noncitizens who later admitted they were wrongly on the rolls. There are likely to be other noncitizens who remain on the rolls without ever self-reporting.
Mr. Schmidt also predicted that if Pennsylvania were to study the problem statewide, they would expose a much higher level of bogus registration than the 220 noncitizens found in his city.
The problem has already cropped up in other states.
Studies earlier this year by the Public Interest Legal Foundation found thousands of illegal voters registered and casting ballots in both Virginia and New Jersey.
In each of those states, the PILF obtained records of persons who’d had their voter registration canceled because they admitted to being noncitizens, and then matched them up against voting records.
Logan Curchwell, a spokesman for the PILF, said the findings should spur changes to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, commonly called Motor-Voter, which forced states to sign voters up while obtaining driver’s licenses.
“DMVs should never be in the business of offering voter registration to Green Card holders. The time is now to have a substantive discussion about rethinking Motor Voter,” Mr. Churchwell said.
He said it’s not just voter integrity that suffers. Those immigrants who later try to seek citizenship could have their applications delayed or even denied for voting illegally.
One woman was even deported last month for voting illegally.
Margarita Fitzpatrick claimed she was bamboozled into it by the clerk at the motor vehicle bureau in Illinois, who said it was “up to you” whether she should register to vote. She also checked “Yes” next to the box asking whether she was a citizen.
She voted in a couple of elections, then ran into trouble when she applied for citizenship in 2007, and admitted that she had in fact voted — illegally — before. An appeals court earlier this year ruled that Ms. Fitzpatrick spoke English well enough that there was no confusion and either knew, or should have known, that she wasn’t supposed to be voting.
The panel of judges in that case said the 1993 Motor-Voter law created a tricky situation since it forbids officials from saying anything that might discourage someone from registering. That left the employee to make the “unhelpful” statement that the decision to register was up to Ms. Fitzpatrick.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...llegal-voters/
