In the aftermath of an Arizona federal appeals court ruling last week that will allow individuals to vote without proof of citizenship, an election integrity expert is raising the alarm over the possibility of millions of illegal votes being cast due to a loophole in how individuals are registered to vote at their local DMV with the presidential election just three months away.

On Monday, Cleta Mitchell, founder of the Election Integrity Network, joined “Washington Watch” to analyze problems with verifying the citizenship of registered voters, starting with the Arizona court ruling.

“[P]oor Arizona, they’ve been trying for 20 years to be able to get documentary proof of citizenship in order to be able to register to vote in that state, literally starting in the early 2000s,” she lamented. “There is a statute in Arizona that you have to provide proof of citizenship when you register to vote. And they asked the Election Assistance Commission about a decade ago to add that to the federal form for use in Arizona, because Congress … 31 years ago passed what we call the ‘Motor Voter’ bill that requires every state to accept and use this federal form for voter registration. Arizona wanted to make sure that the form was consistent with its state law requiring documentary proof of citizenship.”

“However,” Mitchell continued, “the Supreme Court of the United States said that the Election Assistance Commission didn’t have the authority to do that because Congress didn’t put it in the language of the statute. So what the Supreme Court ordered as a remedy 11 years ago was for Arizona to be able to have two separate voter rolls. If you want to vote in state elections, you have to provide documentary proof of citizenship. But if you don’t have documentary proof of citizenship, guess what? You can register to vote on the federal only list, which means if you don’t prove citizenship, you can get a ballot for president, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House.”

Despite the appeals court setback, Mitchell expressed hope that the Arizona legislature will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court due to gravity of the situation. “I hope that they’ll move for emergency consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court. And I wish that the Trump campaign would also weigh in, and a lot of people would weigh in and ask the court to keep Arizona from sending ballots to people who are not confirmed to be U.S. citizens. If you want to pick the number one thing I’m worried about for 2024, that’s it. And it’s not just in Arizona. It’s everywhere.”

In response to Democratic lawmakers who say that illegal voting is “not happening,” Mitchell detailed how non-citizens have gained access to ballots over the last two decades.

“[W]e know that it’s an issue because we know that there are non-citizens on the voter rolls,” she pointed out. “[We] have to remember that this has happened gradually. And the laws regarding the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 says that every state … must verify identity and residency of a voter before adding that person to the voter rolls. What’s missing from that list? Citizenship, because nobody could envision a time when we would have massive disregard of our immigration laws by the existing administration. And so what we have is this massive number of illegals coming across the border. We have laws on the books against that. They’re here illegally. But somehow we’re supposed to imagine that the same people who came across the border illegally are somehow going to say, ‘Oh, but it’s illegal for me to register and vote?’”

Mitchell further emphasized how easy it is for illegal immigrants and non-citizens to get registered to vote.

“The two things that the federal law requires is confirming identity and residency for [voter] registration,” she explained. “Well, guess what? You know how you do that under this federal law? Driver’s license number and social security number. Every state issues driver’s licenses to non-citizens [living in the U.S. legally]. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia issue driver’s licenses to illegals. So what does that verify? [It] doesn’t verify citizenship. And the Social Security Administration issues Social Security numbers to non-citizens because they are supposed to be working with work permits if they’re here illegally. … That’s where they’re going to get their driver’s licenses and ID cards … and then they are getting registered to vote. And once they get on those rolls, you have no way of knowing whether they’re voting.”

“They know,” remarked guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice. “That’s why the borders have been wide open for the last three and a half years.” “They do know,” Mitchell nodded in agreement. One recent study found that up to 2.7 million non-citizens are likely to cast illegal votes in the November elections.

Mitchell pointed to the Only Citizens Vote Coalition as a way for the public to combat illegal voter registration. “We have formed the Only Citizens Vote Coalition. … We send out a weekly newsletter. We’ve created a national working group on Only Citizens Vote that meets by Zoom every Thursday at 11 a.m. EST. It’s free. We’re trying to get people activated. We’ve created toolkits and resources, and we’re going to have a national week in September to shine a bright light on the national online Only Citizens Vote Week. … We have got to create essentially a national citizens watch at our local DMV.”

Mitchell went on to put into perspective the outsize influence that non-citizens could have in the November elections.

“[T]here is a website called Justfacts.com [which] says on a very conservative basis that 10 to 12% of those who are in this country are non-citizens, and that includes both people here legally and illegally, because we have many, many people who are here legally [student visas, work visas, permanent residents with green cards], plus all these illegals. … The Department of Homeland Security says they don’t know how many there are, but [some] estimate 22 million. If 10% of those 22 million actually register and vote … how many does it take to flip Utah, which has mainly mail-in voting? How many does it take to flip North Dakota, which doesn’t have voter registration? People just show up and vote. And how are they supposed to deal with that?”

Mitchell concluded by encouraging conservatives to get involved at the local level by serving as poll watchers and election volunteers and turning out friends and family to vote in large numbers.

“[W]e have so many people around the country who’ve worked so hard on trying to clean voter rolls,” she highlighted. “I do urge people to sign up and be a poll observer and sign up to be an election worker. … I really do believe that it is going to take all of us getting everyone we know to vote. … I think [Trump] has to win by such big margins that they can’t manipulate the outcome. [T]he closer it is, the harder it is for us to overcome the shenanigans. But number one … let’s all work hard at getting our friends and neighbors and family members to register, to vote, and to look around and basically create a national neighborhood watch. Do we see pockets of illegals registering at driver’s license agencies? Raise the stink about it in your local communities.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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