Fraudulent Votes Could Determine Which Party Controls Congress

By Joe Guzzardi
October 29, 2014

A shocking academic study on voter fraud focused on non-U.S. citizens who cast ballots should set off alarm bells, especially since a crucial election that could determine which party controls Congress is only days away.

Old Dominion University scholars Jesse T. Richmond and Gulshan A. Chattha and George Mason University’s David C. Earnest article “Do Non-Citizens Vote in U.S. Elections” appeared in Electoral Studies. The report concluded that “some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.”

The widely-accepted judgment about voter fraud is that incidents are so few and far between that its impact is negligible. Efforts to prevent fraud like implementing voter identification requirements are cast as racist or thinly disguised efforts to prevent poor and minority voters from participating in the democratic process.

But by analyzing large data samples (32,800 in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010) from the Cooperative Congressional Elective Study, the authors found that more than 14 percent of non-citizens indicated they were registered to vote including many who actually voted. Based upon extrapolations from the sample’s portion of verified voters, the authors determined that in 2008, 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted and, in 2010, 2.2 percent voted. 

The authors conclude that in some extremely close elections, non-citizen voting could have provided the narrow margin of victory. In 2008, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) edged out incumbent Norm Coleman by 312 votes. After a six-month election recount, Franken was declared the winner. The results could have been decided by 0.65 percent of Minnesota’s non-citizens. Franken became the Senate Democrats pivotal 60^th vote. The non-partisan Minnesota Majority conducted an 18-month investigation and learned that at least 341 convicted felons from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area also cast votes.

Non-citizens, who prefer Democratic candidates, may also have provided the 2008 margin of victory for President Obama in North Carolina. Obama carried the state by 14,177 votes so a 5.1 percent turnout by North Carolina’s adult non-citizens would have put him over the top. A current review of North Carolina voter rolls showed that at least 145 illegal immigrants, mostly deferred action for childhood arrivals recipients, are registered. The DACA program entitles recipients to legal work permits and driver’s licenses but not the right to vote.

The growing popularity of absentee and mail-in ballots reduces the risk to a non-citizen of being challenged at the polling booth and has therefore  increased the chances of fraud. In recent elections in California, Arizona and Colorado where illegal immigrant populations are high and non-citizens can register online or through the mail, 30 percent of voting ballots were mailed in.

Richman, Chattha and Earnest allow that some non-citizens may not know about the federal regulations that govern voting. But, since fraud disproportionately benefits Democrats, the greater likelihood is that there’s little interest in ending fraud even though it’s a federal crime to knowingly ignore it. An Obama executive order which would give legal status to as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants would guarantee more fraud of this kind.

Non-citizen votes dilute those of citizens. When illegal aliens and felons vote, usually to advance their own specific agendas which likely conflict with the common American good, they cancel out votes from American citizens.

Increasing incidents of voter fraud represent the greatest threat yet to the founding principles of the historic American nation.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been nationally syndicated since 1987. Contact him at [email protected]