It should be utterly embarrassing that the United States, a global leader in cutting-edge technology, still has election practices that are no better than those in many third-world nations. Election officials in Los Angeles recently admitted in federal court that they possess no independent means of verifying whether the people on their voter rolls are U.S. citizens. They simply take the voter’s word for it.
The Justice Department this week charged 28 noncitizens in the Golden State with election crimes, including voting. Eleven of the defendants were arrested.
The evidence that noncitizens appear on rolls and sometimes vote is no longer theoretical.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter’s response was direct: “This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for California and L.A. County.”
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office replied that California follows the National Voter Registration Act’s 1990s self-attestation rules. That is precisely the problem. The law that currently governs federal registration treats citizenship as a matter of personal declaration rather than documentary fact. In a state with millions of noncitizens, that is an invitation for error at best and fraud at worst.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act was written to close the gap by requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register and photo identification to vote. Currently stalled in the Senate, the SAVE Act is not radical. It is the minimum standard most other developed democracies already enforce. Its failure to become law is not the result of technical mystery. It is the result of political choice.
The evidence that noncitizens appear on rolls and sometimes vote is no longer theoretical.
A reported software glitch in New Jersey added roughly 6,600 self-declared noncitizens to the rolls. The state's later review found that about 340 cast ballots. Iowa’s secretary of state identified 277 noncitizens registered; 35 of them cast ballots counted in the 2024 election. Ohio found 137 people who had twice confirmed noncitizenship to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and were on the rolls anyway. A grand jury indicted several for illegal voting across multiple cycles.
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Federal prosecutors continue to bring cases — 16 aliens charged in North Carolina, New York, and Idaho for illegal voting and false claims of citizenship, among others. These are not internet rumors. They are findings by secretaries of state and federal charging documents.
Critics respond that the numbers are small relative to total ballots and have never swung a statewide or national election. That is true in most races and irrelevant to the principle. Every illegal vote cancels a legal one. In close local contests — school boards, city councils, state legislative seats — a few dozen votes can decide outcomes.
When California is handed a list of 20,000 suspected cases and declines to sequester the ballots or conduct a prompt, transparent review, it is not protecting election integrity. It is prioritizing the administrative convenience of self-attestation over the statutory requirement that only citizens vote in federal elections.
Officials who minimize the issue are part of the problem. Newsom’s office described the 28 California charges as “0.0001% of California voters” and argued that raising the issue near an election “sows distrust.” Meanwhile, Los Angeles County attorneys have called the federal list “unreliable” and said there is “no basis” for the claim of widespread problems.
Election administrators in other states also try to muddy the waters, saying that noncitizen voting is “vanishingly rare,” “infinitesimal,” or so uncommon that aggressive verification is unnecessary. These statements treat any documented instance as a rounding error rather than a violation of law.
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The remedy is straightforward and has been long available. Documentary proof of citizenship at registration closes the self-attestation loophole. Photo identification at the polls confirms that the person casting the ballot matches the registrant. Systematic comparison of voter rolls against federal immigration databases, followed by prompt removal of confirmed noncitizens, keeps the lists clean.
States that have implemented elements of this approach — Wyoming, Kansas, and others — have not collapsed into chaos. The extra administrative work is well worth the price of a system in which citizenship is a prerequisite rather than a suggestion.
Immigration enforcement does not stop at the border. It includes the recognition that the right to vote is reserved for citizens. When officials treat noncitizen registration and voting as an acceptable residual cost of motor-voter convenience, they are making a policy choice that dilutes the franchise of the people who live under the laws those votes enact.
Election integrity is not a mystery. It requires the political courage to require proof, to clean the rolls, and to pass the SAVE Act. The alternative is continued reliance on trust alone in a system that California’s own federal prosecutor has shown cannot verify the most basic eligibility requirement. Citizens are entitled to better.
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[H/T Blaze Media]
