Hundreds of noncitizens living in New Jersey say they were unknowingly registered to vote (some reportedly Democrats), according to documents reviewed by The Federalist.
Voter rolls from at least eight of the state’s 21 counties show several instances in which noncitizens who were trying to become citizens asked to be removed from the voter rolls. “Most were registered as Democrats,” Fox News reported.
New Jersey Republican Party Chairwoman Christine Giordano told The Federalist that the New Jersey Republican Party submitted an Open Public Records Act request to all 21 county commissioners of registration but have not received responses from all counties.
“We have discovered hundreds of noncitizens who had been registered to vote,” Giordano told The Federalist. “Some counties have not yet provided all documents.”
Noncitizen voting in state and federal elections is illegal and could disqualify a noncitizen from obtaining citizenship.
A review of documents confirms that in one instance, a noncitizen who was registered to vote in Atlantic County claimed it was accidental due to language barriers. Another noncitizen requested to be removed from the voter rolls because he did “not understand how he became registered through the Department of Motor Vehicles, allegedly,” a letter from Maureen G. Bugdon, Atlantic County Superintendent of Elections and Commissioner of Registration, said in a letter obtained by The Federalist.
Giordano told The Federalist that some noncitizens claimed “they were forced to register to vote through New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission system, even though they advised Motor Vehicle employees that they were noncitizens and did not wish to register.”
Notably, New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission is rife with vulnerabilities. The Public Interest Legal Foundation released a report in 2017 which found that when a noncitizen goes to the DMV for any type of driver’s license, if they check “yes” to the citizenship question “they are simply enrolled without any further verification, even if they presented a Green Card to identify themselves at the time of registration.”
One noncitizen who requested to be removed from the voter roll (and claimed he did not understand how he became registered) voted in three times in 2000, three times in 2001, and once in 2008, according to documents reviewed by The Federalist.
But, as Giordano pointed out, “We have no way of knowing how many more [noncitizens are registered to vote] because New Jersey currently lacks a method to determine this number. If these individuals had not self reported, we would not have known about them.”
But there is a way New Jersey could have caught noncitizens registering to vote: and it has to do with federal legislation, or should I say, lack thereof.
Currently, the only thing standing between a noncitizen registering to vote (and possibly voting) and our “free and fair” elections is a tiny square box on a federal registration form asking prospective voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they are telling the truth about their citizenship status. In other words, the honor system. No documentation is required to prove someone is a citizen.
Republicans introduced the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act which would — among other things — require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID to cast a ballot by amending the National Voter Registration Act (notably, this is the same legislation that required each driver’s license application to serve as an application for voter registration for federal elections). The SAVE America Act legislation would prevent noncitizens like those in New Jersey from getting on the rolls in the first place.
But on June 4 during a late night vote-a-rama session, Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis “voted against a motion to waive all budgetary procedural objections to an amendment on the SAVE America Act offered by Sen. Lindsey Graham,” The Hill reported.
But the New Jersey voter registration records show the vulnerability that the SAVE America Act is designed to address. In “hundreds” of cases, noncitizens ended up on the voter rolls despite ineligibility and in many cases election officials only learned of this after the individual came forward themselves. As Giordano told The Federalist, there is no reliable way to determine how many noncitizens may be registered statewide.
But requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote would prevent noncitizens from slipping onto the rolls. Still for some reason, RINO’s are joining Democrats to block this legislation.
