More than 200 self-admitted noncitizens managed to register to vote in Arizona’s Maricopa County and at least nine of them cast ballots in federal elections, according to a new report that questions the federal law that pushes states to register more voters.
The study by the Public Interest Legal Foundation is the first in a series of reports PILF plans to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Motor Voter law, which required states to allow people to register to vote at their local motor vehicle bureau offices.
The law has increased voter registration but also led to messy voter rolls — including, PILF says, a striking number of noncitizens illegally gaining access to the ballot box.
In Maricopa, since 2015, some 222 people have alerted officials that they were on the rolls but do not, in fact, hold citizenship. Of those, nine have actually cast ballots in federal elections before admitting they should have been excluded, PILF said.
“This is just more evidence that there is a problem that is not being adequately addressed,” said J. Christian Adams, head of PILF and a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s voting rights section.
Motor Voter, officially the National Voter Registration Act, enlisted local officials in the push to get more people to register to vote. It required state motor vehicle bureaus to ask customers if they wanted to register. It also required other state agencies to make registration forms available, but motor vehicle bureaus have become the dominant actor in new registrations.
SEE ALSO: Millions set aside for border wall headed for Mayorkas waste bin
The problem is that some states have offered the chance to everyone — even noncitizens who, under federal law, are not eligible to vote in national elections.
Among the biggest hiccups was Pennsylvania, where officials discovered its motor vehicle system was allowing noncitizens to vote.
The state said in 2019 that it had found more than 11,000 noncitizens people who snuck onto its lists.
In North Carolina, meanwhile, voter registration forms were sent to motor-vehicle bureaus with the “citizen” box already checked. A 2017 audit found 41 noncitizens cast ballots in 2016. All of them were legal immigrants.
Federal prosecutors brought charges against several dozen noncitizens over the North Carolina voting irregularities.
The 222 names in Maricopa County are people who self-reported as noncitizens. Mr. Adams said immigrants seeking citizenship often come forward and admit they’re on the rolls because one of the questions on the naturalization form is whether they ever were illegally registered. Lying on that form can quickly earn deportation.
SEE ALSO: DHS to release illegal immigrants ahead of new border surge
“There’s an incentive built into the naturalization process to tell the truth about registering to vote,” he said.
Mr. Adams said there’s no guessing as to how many more names are lurking on the rolls that haven’t come forward.
His report comes a couple of weeks before Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates is slated to make a presentation at the Summit on American Democracy, a project of the Center for Election Innovation & Research.
Mr. Gates’ office didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story. Neither did Maricopa County’s elections office.
The country’s noncitizen number isn’t huge and doesn’t back the claims of some figures on the right who say waves of noncitizens are cast ballots and sway elections. But the figure — 222 known registered voters and nine of them casting ballots — also isn’t zero.
Mr. Adams said even low numbers should be concerning.
“When you have a failure in the system, whether or not it’s rampant doesn’t matter when it involves foreigners voting in American elections,” he said.
Mr. Adams said part of the problem with Motor Voter dates back to when the law was created. Back then, lawmakers debated over how to handle a voter registration application where someone had not placed a check in the citizenship box.
Democrats had wanted a blank box as an attestation of citizenship. Republicans saw it differently. The law ended up silent on the matter, Mr. Adams said, which means blue-leaning states generally interpret it the way Democrats wanted, and red-leaning states see it the way Republicans wanted.
Mr. Adams said Congress should step in and provide clarity by authorizing states to validate citizenship claims. Right now, courts have generally ruled against state attempts to do citizenship checks beyond what applicants write on the registration forms.
In addition to making it easier to register, Motor Voter also required states to try to clean up their rolls, or what’s known as list maintenance.
Right now that applies to names of voters who have moved or are deceased, but Mr. Adams said Congress should add verifying citizenship to list maintenance duties.
He’s not optimistic about Congress acting.
“If this problem had been detected 10 years ago, or maybe 15 years ago, I think there would have been a quick bipartisan fix in Congress,” he said. “But the Democrats have become so radicalized now about every voting issue in Congress.”
Motor Voter was supposed to boost what was seen as embarrassing voter turnout by the world’s premier democracy.
Some on the left had also hoped it would cut into the higher participation rates of white, more affluent Americans.
But the data suggested the effects were small.
A 2009 study in State Politics & Policy Quarterly found that the law did increase registration, but didn’t dramatically alter the demographics of voters. The researchers said it had only a “marginal influence.”
In 2014, the Pew Charitable Trusts tried to review how states were doing with the motor vehicle part of the law specifically. They found the data was too erratic to draw any conclusions.
Mr. Adams said his next report marking the 30th anniversary of the law will be on Chicago.
