Report Details Growing Threat Of Noncitizen Vote In U.S. Elections

The House is expected Wednesday to take up another continuing resolution that would fully fund the federal government for another six months. But the spending bill, as Speaker Mike Johnson promised, includes a provision that requires anyone registering to vote in federal elections to provide documented proof of citizenship. 

As it stands (if Republicans don’t develop a recurring case of the weak knees), Democrats will have to decide whether they want to avert a government “shutdown” by the end of the month or whether they want to continue to stand by as foreign national vote in U.S. elections. Polls show a solid majority of Americans support citizen-only voting. 

A new report from the Foundation for Government Accountability, exclusively provided to The Federalist, breaks down the integrity cracks in the U.S. election system and urges Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act and states to clean up their voter rolls. 

The problems are only magnified by an unprecedented 10 million U.S. Border Patrol encounters with illegal aliens in the nearly four years that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been in office. The record numbers under the administration’s borderless policies have raised understandable concerns about noncitizens showing up on voters rolls and some, ultimately, voting in November’s election. 

“There are at least 25 million non-citizens in the country according to the Census Bureau and no federal enforcement mechanism to ensure their names don’t appear on the voters rolls,” Paige Terryberry, senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Federalist. “Right now, the Biden-Harris administration is using welfare offices, DMVs, Public housing, healthercare.gov and more to register voters, and they aren’t verifying citizenship at these locations. States can act too, but the SAVE Act is the only thing that can fix this problem nationwide before the election.”

‘Vote-Buying Scheme’

In the FGA report, “The Non-Citizen Voting Problem, and How to Solve It,” Terryberry notes, among other driving concerns, the Biden-Harris administration’s unprecedented use of federal agencies to register and mobilize voters. But not all voters. Biden’s executive order, signed soon after he took office, uses untold amounts of U.S. tax dollars and resources to target left-leaning voters. Critics call it “Bidenbucks” or, as Harris takes over for the politically moribund Biden, “Kamala Cash.” 

The Foundation for Government Accountability has been attempting to track the impact of Bidenbucks for years. The administration has fought Freedom of Information Act requests from FGA and others, stonewalling the election integrity watchdogs and audaciously attempting to hide behind executive privilege. But the information that has been released thanks to court victories shows White House-approved leftist groups driving the constitutionally suspect get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort. 

As The Federalist has extensively reported, the left’s massive GOTV campaign is pulling in noncitizens in its voter collection net. At the federal level, the point of entry is through taxpayer-funded welfare programs. 

“As with any radical leftist policy, it starts with an agenda of dependency, masquerading as compassion,” Terryberry writes in the report. “In 46 states, welfare offices provide voter registration forms to individuals, without proof of citizenship.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has sought to “remove eligibility restrictions” on food stamp programs “based on immigration status.” 

“And though applicants for Medicaid are required to verify their citizenship, earlier this year the current administration forbade states from double-checking citizenship status,” the FGA report notes. 

Terryberry asserts the “vote-buying scheme” involves myriad federal programs, including “Social Security offices, national parks, public housing authorities, public colleges, and anyone enrolling in Healthcare.gov.”

‘Faulty Foundation’

While the “experts” in corporate media have derided any illegal immigrant population estimates that deviate from their fixed “11 million” figure, a Yale study several years ago estimated that the actual number was twice the generally accepted count. A 2018 press release from the Ivy League school noted that at the center of the U.S. immigration debate “lies a fairly stable and largely unquestioned number: 11.3 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S.”

“But a paper by three Yale-affiliated researchers suggests all the perceptions and arguments based on that number may have a faulty foundation; the actual population of undocumented immigrants residing in the country is much larger than that, perhaps twice as high, and has been underestimated for decades,” the release states. 

The population of the undocumented has only risen under Biden-Harris’ borderless policies. So has the opportunity for noncitizens to vote, the FGA report asserts. 

Democrats and their pals in the accomplice media argue there’s nothing to see here. The facts do not support their sanguine perspective on the potential and actual incidents of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. Yes, it’s a felony for foreign nationals to vote in presidential and congressional contests. But accountability is nothing more than an honor system. Check a box attesting citizenship. But who checks on the box checkers? 

As the FGA report notes, states must “accept and use” the federal voter registration form from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). That’s been a cause for controversy. The 1993 National Voter Registration Act requires states provide voter registration at motor vehicle agencies. 

“Since most states issue driver’s licenses to non-citizens, and some issue them to illegal aliens, there is concern that non-citizens are being automatically registered to vote when they are issued a license,” the FGA report states. “Security measures should be taken at the state level to ensure this does not happen.”

‘Sand in the Gears’

First, Terryberry asserts, states must clean up their dirty voter rolls. The report notes swing state Wisconsin’s removal of more than 200,000 names from the state voter registration database in 2021, but it took some intense court battles to get there. And, as a lawsuit argues, the Badger State’s Department of Transportation refuses to turn over records of foreign nationals that Wisconsin elections regulators could use for verification. Elections officials acknowledge there are noncitizens on the voter rolls. How many is an open question. 

The report urges the use of databases such as U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement system and E-Verify. States could also employ data sharing agreements.

“Having clean voter rolls is essential to election integrity. Dirty rolls put sand in the gears of the American election machine. The entire system get compromised, complicated, and corrupted the second we allow ineligible voters to cast ballots,” Terryberry told The Federalist. “Cleaning the rolls makes it more likely we have a well-functioning, secure election.” 

‘An Immediate Obligation’

But the more immediate line of defense, the FGA report argues, is passage of the SAVE Act. The Republican-controlled House did just that earlier this summer, with very little support from Democrats. The Democrat-controlled Senate was content watching it die a slow death in the upper house. Now, funding the government is on the line — just in time for the election. 

“Congress has an immediate obligation to do two things: responsibly fund the federal government, and ensure the security of our elections,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement.

“Because we owe this to our constituents, we will move forward on Wednesday with a vote on the 6-month CR with the SAVE Act attached,” he added. “I urge all of my colleagues to do what the overwhelming majority of the people of this country rightfully demand and deserve – prevent non-American citizens from voting in American elections.”

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.