Thread: VA: Disturbing Experience at the Polls

Just returned from voting. Our polling place is very small...132 voters in 3 hours. I walked right up to check in, there were 4 others voting.

What's disturbing is the first thing I see when I walk in the door is an hispanic woman, who can't speak english. She wants to vote, but is not registered and they tell her she can't vote.

Then, while I'm at the booth, another hispanic woman comes in and wants to vote. She isn't registered either and they tell her she can't vote.

I don't know if they were illegal or not, but they are coming out to the polls, whether they can vote or not. I wonder how many have been able to get through.

Apparently, the word's gotten out.

BTW, I live in Fairfax County, which is considered one of the more important elections in the country as they believe the outcome will be a good indication of how illegal immigration will effect the 2008 election.

The thought of how many get away with voteing is frightening. Especially in some counties of N.J. where they are the majority. This also would explain why Lautenberg and Menendoza vote for Amnesty and the dream act.

Our hopes of cleaning up this country is null if they do not stop illegals from voting. The illegals will be able to declare the way this country is run and it is not even their country. That is why we are seeing the Dems acting the way they do. They are counting on the illegal immigrant vote.

ourcountrynottheirs:

All coming from a non-attorney, and certainly not a scholar into US Elections Law...but...

In general, it is outright illegal for a non-citizen to vote in Federal elections. That is pretty cut-and-dry.


At the state level, things get rather complex and quickly. I'd recommend doing some research into the exact requirements/provisions of state elections - as to ID requirements, registration requirements, bi- or multi-lingual ballot availability, and direct feedback from the local elections workers themselves. When combined in total, should provide a pretty good idea of:

a). if it is 'technically illegal' for IAs to vote there, and
b). how the state either encourages, facilitates or discourages the practice as well.

Sadly, while the former (a) should be the main determinant controlling the activity, in actuality, (b) is the operative factor that matters in most cases. This is due to hawk-ish oversight that wonderful groups like the ACLU and others have done to ensure that, basically, 'anyone and everyone should have a vote' - laws and procedures be damned.


In my state (OR), basically, the standards are loosely applied - so that even *if* there were outright legal sanctions to prohibit IAs from voting, they are actually accommodated in voting tacitly by: lax ID requirements (remember that we already DO give DLs to IAs, for example, and IIRC, you can provide a utility bill a 'proof of residence'), multi-lingual voting booklets (), ...etc. In short, it amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. While there may be official laws and regs against illegals from voting in state and local elections, there is almost nothing to stop them in the purely practical sense.

It is rather bizarre in my state, in that we have shifted to a near-total implementation of mail-in voting (you can still drop the paper ballot at a registered legit elections dept. office, however). And, on the paper envelope (there is a 'security enveloped into which you place the actual ballot form, and that envelope goes into a more generic standard 'reply' type of one...), anyway, there are very stern warnings against:
'Improper use of this ballot, <blah, blah, blah>'. These warnings include:
signing someone else's name, using someone else's ballot, ... do you think there is one warning about being a non-resident/non-citizen and attempting to vote, - yep, you guessed it. Nada.

HTH

Maybe we need the minutemen standing guard at the polls to make people think twice about voteing who shouldn't be, or start a new group of citizens "Americans for Legal Votes" They can't stop them but they could scare them away as in "warn" them. Maybe holding sign' "citizens only" " Protect our vote" etc. all across the nation at every poll!

Illegal votes must be stopped at the registration process. Their names should never be allowed to appear on the list of qualified electors that is sent to the polls on election day.

There has to be more authority given to the registrars to require proof of citizenship when one registers.

I urge everyone to contact your Board of Elections and inquire about their procedure for verifying citizenship. If it appears that the process is vulnerable, the state legislators should be contacted and asked to pass bills that will tighten it up.

It would also be helpful for everyone to learn the process for challenging the ballots of those suspected of voting illegally. There is a procedure for disqulifying their votes, which could lead to criminal penalties for fraudulently registering. The process varies from state to state but is easily discovered on the Internet.

Yeah, it is a real concern and a problem, that's for sure.

SOSAD, I think this was before you came on board, but back in the 2nd half of last year, we had put together efforts of investigating and counteracting this problem here. Search for the forum for Lock The Vote and related articles here. Those willl give some idea about the types of issues that we looked into and what we found along the way... (Just FYI, HTH)

Nouveaux, thanks. Those are great points!

Originally Posted by PhredE

Yeah, it is a real concern and a problem, that's for sure.

SOSAD, I think this was before you came on board, but back in the 2nd half of last year, we had put together efforts of investigating and counteracting this problem here. Search for the forum for Lock The Vote and related articles here. Those willl give some idea about the types of issues that we looked into and what we found along the way... (Just FYI, HTH)

Thanks Phred I'll see what I can find out!! You know if we can watch our borders I don't no why we can not watch our voting booths.
I also don't want the Dems getting those votes they have been fighting so hard too get through illegals means.

SOSAD: Did you catch the thread (I think it was one created by user Triumph) about what Sen. Whitehouse said on the floor of the senate yesterday? If not, go give it a quick look. It relates directly to what is being discussed here....