Tom Fitton:
One of the many negative downstream consequences of illegal aliens flooding across the border is the increased possibility of voter fraud. Obama and his leftist allies are committed to thwarting any effort by states to protect the integrity of the voting process that would prevent illegal aliens and other ineligible individuals from voting.
Judicial Watch has launched a nationwide effort to support election integrity. That effort continued this week, as we once again joined forces with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) to file an amicus curiae briefwith the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in support of Arizona’s and Kansas’s efforts to add proof of citizenship requirements to a federal voter registration form.
What is behind this legal challenge to the common-sense effort to make sure all votes cast are legitimate? A leftist radical special interest group? Well, yes and no. It’s the Federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), run by leftists in the Obama administration, which is appealing a lower court order requiring the EAC to allow the states to add the proof of citizenship requirements.
Before getting to the legal arguments we articulate in our brief, I just want to take a moment to put this legal battle in context (with a little help from the Center for Immigration Studies and its excellent report Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in the United States? Why Not.).
As CIS points out, every single state in the United States legally bars non-citizens from voting in national or state elections. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton, made it a crime for any non-citizen to vote in a federal election.
This is a fact so basic and so well-documented, says CIS, that 94% of fourth graders tested on the question of whether or not non-citizens could vote got the question correct.
So why are leftists inside the Obama administration in the bottom 6% of a fourth grade class? It’s certainly not because they don’t understand the law. They understand it perfectly well. It’s because they don’t agree with the law, want to change it, and know they would not have a snowball’s chance in you-know-where driving that kind of legislation through Congress. So they do what they always do: Ignore the law, go to court, and hope judges allow them to get away with the lawlessness.
You also should know that the campaign to allow non-citizens to vote is a national effort that has already borne fruit. Per CIS: “there are several municipalities in the United States that currently allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. Moreover, legislation to allow non-citizens to vote has been introduced in a number of states and localities including Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and New York City.”
Kansas and Arizona, however, were not willing to “play ball” with leftists who boldly court non-citizen voting. And that’s why they (and we) are active in court.
