That's what Secretary of State Sam Reed just said when asked on the John Carlson show how many non-citizens voted in Washington. Reed went on to say that it "does not appear to be a problem of real magnitude".
The basic numbers again: Roughly 6 percent of Washington's population of approximately 6 million are non-citizens. If half of them are 18 or over, then Washington has 180,000 non-citizens old enough to vote. (I think more than half are over 18, but I want to keep my estimates both simple and conservative.) If 1 in 100 voted, then there were 1,800 non-citizen votes in the last election. For ethnic reasons, I would expect them to vote Democratic by at least 2 to 1. I don't know what Secretary Reed means when he says that the problem is not of real magnitude, but I can say that in this last governor's election, 1 in 100 is of real magnitude. In fact, 1 in 500 is of real magnitude.
To his credit, John Carlson has a practical proposal for identifying some non-citizens, asking for the help of the foreign consulates. In particular, Carlson suggesting getting the lists of Matricula Consular ID cards from the Mexican consul and checking them against our voter list. Some other countries have started issuing similar cards to their nationals, so the check might be able to include them, too.
To his very great credit, Sam Reed took to the idea immediately. And it turns out that he knows the local Mexican consul and thinks he would cooperate. It's a good idea, and Reed's enthusiasm sounded genuine. And Reed did support, again, the idea that it was reasonable to check for citizenship when voters register.
This is not the only way to investigate how many non-citizens vote. As I mentioned before in a comment to another post, a newspaper that was interested in this question could investigate it fairly easily. How? Get a reporter who spoke Spanish, or Chinese, or whatever, and go to neighborhoods with many immigrants. Promise anonymity and start walking and asking questions. (The same thing could be done by private investigators, but their promises of anonymity might not get as much trust. I would discourage anyone from trying this on their own unless they were very familiar with the area.)
There are also some statistical ways to investigate this problem by examining voting patterns over time. I have some tentative ideas for doing this myself. If you have any suggestions or you know of any precincts that you think might have many non-citizen voters, I would be interested in hearing about them.
(Stefan types faster than I do. But there's enough different in my post that I thought I would add it as is, in spite of some duplicated points.)
Posted by Jim Miller at January 27, 2005 05:03 PM | Email This"We Do Not Have A Number." That's what Secretary of State Sam Reed just said when asked on the John Carlson show how many non-citizens voted in Washington. Reed went on to say that it "does not appear to be a problem of real magnitude".This seems to be a mantra for way too many people responsible for elections when they are asked about fraud detection and prevention. No, we don't know how many people did this. No, we don't do anything to prevent it. No, we don't do anything to check up on it. But we're sure it is not a problem.
How on earth would they know? Talk about denial.
Posted by: Boonie on January 27, 2005 05:44 PM"Hi, I'm Paul..."
"Hi Paul..."
"I'm...a...political hack..."
I have no clue what he'd do when he gets up to steps four or five....
The fact that he'd have plenty of company is of little comfort.
Posted by: scott158 on January 27, 2005 06:15 PM(I understand that there are bumper stickers out there with this slogan). The person who prints these could get alot of business if he taps the correct source (Like this blog).
Posted by: KS on January 27, 2005 07:47 PMCiting a Journal Sentinel review that found more than 1,200 votes cast from invalid addresses in Milwaukee, local and federal law enforcement officials launched a joint investigation Wednesday into potential voter fraud in the Nov. 2 election.Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann said he and U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic agreed to investigate potential problems together. The effort will also include the Milwaukee Police Department and the local office of the FBI.
...
And a new Journal Sentinel review of the city's voting records shows the system is so flawed that more than 300 people are listed as voting twice from the same address, even though each apparently was given only one ballot.
That increases the size of a gap, already at more than 8,300, between the number of ballots cast and the number of people who can be identified as voting in the presidential election, which in Wisconsin was determined by about 11,000 votes.
Speaking of federal investigators, what happened to that suit over the military ballots?
If the Seattle police can't find out about a person's current immigration status - for fear of (gasp!)*profiling*. How is an election official in Seattle or King County going to approach this issue of non-citizens voting?
But, whatever people think about illegal immigrants or "undocumented workers", etc., it should be clear to everyone that non-citizens should not have a right to vote. That's one of the reasons people work to become naturalized: so they can vote!
Posted by: Shannon K on January 27, 2005 09:50 PMRedemption can come to the Republicans if they find a way to get rid of the Motor Voter Act at the State level, the cause of a good number of illegal voters who get away with it. They can thumb their nose at Federal Government. However, they must not be afraid of not being Politically correct or they play right into the hands of the Demoncats.
Posted by: KS on January 27, 2005 10:08 PMFolks, it's time we started leaning on our elected officials. Screwups of this magnitude, whether intentional or accidental, means somebody's head should roll. Sure, people make mistakes, and there's such a thing as forgiveness, but there's also such tings as responsibility and accountability. Should we blithely ignore those "mistakes" and just say, "Oh, well - that's the way things are. You can't fight City Hall!!" ? Not likely. The Dems are hoping all this will blow over, not realizing that at least some of us are throwing off the stupor of the last 20+ years and actually PAYING ATTENTION now.
Notice how more and more fraud is being found in more and more elections? This isn't happening by chance... I feel that the Great Unwashed Electorate is finally waking up after being lulled to sleep for umpteen many years.
Sure, let's bring in the Feds. Let's haul this dirty laundry all the way to the Supremes if necessary. Time to fight back.
Like I said, I'm gonna remember come next election, Sam ..............
Posted by: Steve Egan on January 28, 2005 12:44 AMIf this had been a liberal issue, there would have been a national outcry. Even Fox News, who is generally on to this type of fraud, has ignored the story.
Posted by: Marilyn Rockwell on January 28, 2005 02:44 PMThey'll have to report it though, when a judgment occurs.. Re: The liberal media, that's the way it is, Marilyn.
Posted by: KS on January 28, 2005 07:52 PM