Among several flawed — and ultimately fatal — features in the U.S. House of Representatives’ massive voter “reform” bill are provisions mandating universal automatic voter registration and Election Day sign-ups.
The “For the People Act of 2019,” passed by Democrats on a 234-193 vote last week, is going nowhere because the Republican-led Senate will not take it up. “This sprawling 622-page doorstop is never going to become law,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday.
But the problematic provisions are steadily making their way into state laws, effectively opening voting booths to noncitizens and even illegal aliens.
Pushed by progressive groups and credulous commentators, automatic voter registration (AVR) and Election Day registration are hailed as tools to “strengthen democracy.”
In fact, such measures threaten to make a mockery of democracy.
By “streamlining” the voter registration process – the Brennan Center for Justice cautions that the steps to ensure proper voter verification and identification are shortened, or skipped altogether.
“The provisions would literally make it illegal to prevent illegal voters from voting. We shouldn’t be making it a crime for election officials to do their job, which is to prevent people who have no legal right to vote from voting illegally,” said Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga.
Ironically, Democrats tout their H.R. 1 legislation as an effort to restrict foreign influence on elections. The bill imposes new limits on political spending by companies with at least a 5 percent foreign government owner or companies with at least a 20 percent foreign national owner.
So how about foreign nationals casting ballots in U.S. elections and cancelling out votes of American citizens?
“The universal automatic voter registration portion of H.R. 1 is more than a landmine for noncitizen voter registration risks — it’s a black hole. Noncitizens will be registered under H.R. 1,” warned Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the nonpartisan Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF), which litigates election-integrity issues.
PILF has issued multiple reports detailing how AVR (“Motor Voter”) programs in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Georgia, New York and Michigan enabled ineligible noncitizens to register to vote and, in some case, cast ballots.
FAIR last year reported that legal and illegal aliens are fueling vote fraud in Texas. In North Carolina, 19 foreign nationals were charged with illegally voting
Loose voter-registration laws, lax verification and poor list maintenance have allowed countless aliens onto voter rolls. Some jurisdictions don’t even make a pretense of enforcement. San Francisco, Calif., and Takoma Park, Md., openly permit illegal aliens to vote in local elections. Does anyone believe it will end there?
McConnell and Senate Republicans can posture like they stopped electoral mischief cold by sidetracking H.R. 1. If only. As the 2020 campaign gathers steam, watch for things to heat up and for this nation’s voting lists to enroll more noncitizens, state by state.