One of the central narratives that former President Donald Trump and his allies are pushing is that Democrats are planning to steal the election by using undocumented immigrants to pad their vote totals.
What a petty self-righteous character we find in Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen! Thank you Judd and Noel for highlighting him. This is an example of how Trump leads--petty, vengeful and wrong.
Here's the bottom line: "It is illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote, and data shows it almost never happens. A database maintained by the right-wing Heritage Foundation found 'fewer than 100 examples of non-citizens voting between 2002 and 2022, amid more than 1 billion lawfully cast ballots.'"
In his new book, "On Freedom ", Timothy Snyder makes two points: First that denial of voting rights to convicted felons is a danger to democracy; and second that many states use slavery era laws to disenfranchise cities by counting prisoners as rural residents.
Hong Kong allows their prisoners to vote as well. I would imagine there are other nations, as well, who do not have such disenfranchisement as part of a prison sentence.
Naively, I never imagined that there were so many people, so many lawyers, so many elected officials driven to deprive their fellow citizens of the most fundamental right in this country, the right to vote.
How gratifying that Jeb's promise to W was "don't worry, we've got it covered." The Karma boomeranged into his face when he ran as the destined next president. Trump trashed him into powerlessness.
I'm not an expert in election analysis, but I think it is a plausible claim that WITHOUT the 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby, the 2016 presidential election would not have turned out how it did.
The 2016 general election was the first since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. There were dozens of voter suppression laws and practices after 2013, and hundreds of thousands of people who should have been able to vote could not. Ari Berman documents all this and his work, and in his recent book, Minority Rule.
Christian nationalism is as un-American as it comes. Our founding fathers would be shitting bricks if they knew what was happening in this country today.
Of course, they knew that mixing religion and government was bad but they still supported slavery which wasn’t good, but their intentions of what this country would turn in to be is being clouded nowadays by Christian nationalists and the potential of Donald Trump winning a second term and installing Project 2025. This agenda brought to us by the most racist organization, the Heritage Foundation, which will virtually turn United States of America into a dictatorship.
It pisses me off to watch our country being attacked from within and voting is our only avenue for any remedy, yet, the Electoral College, which is a racist remnant of history that is the largest hurdle for having a true democratic republic. It should be repealed immediately— before this election is compromised by its failure to form a more perfect union.
Christian nationalism is just racism trying to wear Jesus' robes as a disguise. Jesus wasn't White, CN positions contradict his teachings and no single nation can lay claim to someone a belief system says died for the whole world.
While we're at it, not everyone believes in or follows him, so no nation should force them to do either thing, especially when his own lessons discourage it.
A quick check of the Heritage Foundation database shows that for some of those "fewer than 100 examples of non-citizens voting," charges were dropped. In other words, even that number is inflated.
Are these self-righteous Republicans also checking for the validity of addresses listed as residences? I seem to recall Mark Meadows listing a trailer park slot as a residence. Trump uses Mar-a-lago which at least until he paid someone off, could not be a permanent residence. So he voted illegally at least once. Then there's Dr Oz, running in Pennsylvania while residing in NJ.
I am volunteering as an election judge this year, in suburban Minnesota . At our training day, a man asked a question about non citizen voting. Then another man asked a follow up, then a woman. All the elderly folks ( I’m 59, no one in the room was under 40) were getting riled up, saying “ that’s not fair” when told that yes, a non citizen vote would count until it was proved the voter was not a citizen.
I asked “what percentage of the votes are non citizen”? The person leading the training said it just doesn’t happen. A non citizen isn’t going to risk a felony to vote. Hopefully they heard it. It was astounding to hear these people repeating lies they hear for Fox News or family members, afraid of massive non citizen voting in suburban Minnesota.
Incompetence in their own state laws and policies but completely ready to rush to disenfranchise voters. Republicans are “shoot first, research laws later.”
Agree that this is not fair and likely illegal, but its also technically very messy how we handle voting registration in this country and that creates ample spaces for the right to sow fear and doubt.
We all know when we get a driver's license we can be registered to vote. If non-citizen immigrants are also similarly enrolled, now they are "registered" to vote. This is different from being "eligible" to vote as a person could be a non-citizen or a felon, etc. For non-citizens, it's a crime for them to vote and to do so would likely jeopardize their ability to become naturalized in the future.
Nobody on the Trump side could care less about this difference. They have the talking points they need just based on the strange way our system works. We just need to keep hammering away on how non-citizens eventually do want to become citizens and that they wouldn't throw this away just to vote in an election.
That being said, there seem to be some real differences to what's happening in Alabama compared to Nevada. In Alabama, the governor has just taken the lazy step of comparing a list of people who were and possibly still are non-citizens to the state's registered voter list. No implication that these registered voters were actually voting - at least from this writeup.
However, what's happening in Nevada seems more concerning to me from an optics point of view. There the state is using (rather old) data that shows people who were at one time non-citizens, and many of whom could possibly still be non-citizens, on an ACTIVE voting list. It seems more work needs to be done to determine how many of these people are actually eligible to vote, but again, Republicans have all the talking points they need here.
The actions they are taking to exclude large tranches of people who are eligible to vote is illegal, but the legal and political ramifications for their illegal actions seem slight.
Even if the legal action is thrown out of court, it adds to the political noise claiming that Democratic wins are not legitimate, therefore patriots will fight against them. We saw the results of that propaganda last time, with election workers badly harassed and the Capitol assaulted by trump’s mob.
I particularly agree about the sloppiness of the system - and that applies to both the government component and the voter component. Both need to be taking responsibility for maintaining an accurate voter roll.
There should be a baseline presumption that once registered, that registration is valid until clearly established as void. The voter must have reasonable time to correct any issues. The law is correct in setting a cutoff date for changing the rolls. IMO that cutoff should apply to additions as well as deletions.
Ideally, the registrar would maintain an on-line system where voters can easily access their own information. I would require the voter to access their info every two years and electronically certify the info is correct. If you want to vote, this would be a minor burden.
Registrars should be routinely auditing the rolls using multiple information sources such as DMV and other public records. Mismatches would not automatically invalidate voter registration, but would be flagged in the system as something for the voter to review and correct.
Legislatures must adequately resource the system. In particular, they must support and fund a mechanism that prevents registration & voting in multiple states (that’s likely a bigger problem than non-citizen voting).
Slight, because the victims are relatively powerless and the media are not doing their jobs by reporting on the implications, the illegality, and exposing the hypocrisy.
Perhaps if Republican politicians stopped opposing policies that a majority of Americans support and came up with policies that people actually want, they could win elections without filing dubious lawsuits to keep as many people as possible from voting. Just one example: Republicans have been trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act since the day it was passed. They have been unsuccessful because a majority of Americans like the ACA. Republicans have never come up with what they think is a better plan. After 9 years, Trump has only a "concept of a plan" Gee, I wonder why voters are not reassured by that.
You're not? Reassured that is? By the Not-So-Great Pumpkin's SWORN promise to deliver new, better, cheaper and did we say BETTER Health insurance in 2 weeks a few years back that has now devolved to mere "concepts of an idea?"
Ha! I feel as reassured by Trump's "concept of a plan" for health care as I do by his declaration that he will be my "protector" and that if elected, I like all other women, will be happy healthy etc. for the rest of my days.
I no longer have ANY tolerance for Conservatives, Religious Organizations, or just plain registered Republican citizens. I would support legislation to deport them all in exchange for immigrants.
I consider voter-suppression evangelists to all be hateful, ignorant, racist, treasonous, Magat, PsOS. If a civil war must break out, point me to the enlistment line. I’m done with those a-holes.
BTW, I am white, 72, and my ancestors were colonizing immigrants who arrived even before we committed genocide of indigenous people and stole everything before calling it all our own.
Check your registration daily, and Vote All Blue, up and down ballot. Let nothing stop you from voting. VOTE!
I recently moved to Arizona (new work) and took a day off to register to vote in person at the Elections office. I took my US Passport, my original issue SS card from when I entered kindergarten in its old manilla envelope and still attached to the documentation (how they did it way back then), AND my birth certificate. I made sure to have all my records such as new electric bill and address info.
I completed the Arizona form so I can vote in local, county, state, AND federal elections since the federal form will not allow one to vote in local elections. Only using the AZ form allows all participation. I did all of this and made sure I had it completed with three weeks to spare of the voter registration deadline of October 7 here in AZ. I was informed it would be ‘input’ into the system within 24 hrs (business day). And they thanked me for all my documentation ‘proving I was a US citizen.’
I keep checking every day. Nothing is showing. I have called twice now. They keep telling me I have the stamped affidavit and ‘you will be fine’ and yet I absolutely do not feel fine!
Hence, I am planning to take the day off to vote in person if necessary. Mail in ballots are to be sent out in AZ on October 9th. I was instructed to ‘wait 4-5 days after’ before calling them again. 😡
The person answering the phone said they were so busy with new registrations. We must overturn Citizens United and establish a holiday for the presidential and federal elections.
These republican Cons know how to set things up for THEIR narrative. They put so much effort into cheating, projecting as always by accusing Democrats of cheating with all evidence pointing to the republiCons. They will not be able to cheat & win this time. Because this time WE will not allow it.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney who struck down the Georgia abortion law yesterday, will next take on Georgia's new election rules. I hope he rules against them. The State Gov. officials will have little time to appeal before election day!
What a petty self-righteous character we find in Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen! Thank you Judd and Noel for highlighting him. This is an example of how Trump leads--petty, vengeful and wrong.
Here's the bottom line: "It is illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote, and data shows it almost never happens. A database maintained by the right-wing Heritage Foundation found 'fewer than 100 examples of non-citizens voting between 2002 and 2022, amid more than 1 billion lawfully cast ballots.'"
Bet Heritage Foundation hates they ever published that.
(It's me with a C, Valerie)
Everything they touch has become intensely unpopular! But this database was purely numerical before any opinionating.
I'm waiting for Allen to ask those 700+ citizens to sacrifice their voting rites for the greater good. :-(
That Allen forced 700+ citizens to go through hoops is exactly what he and other cons want.
Most Americans believe that voting is a rite. Cons believe that voting, health care, etc. should be earned.
That is what this election is about.
Do you know that Maine allows their prisoners to vote? They vote absentee just like everyone else who’s going to be out of town in voting day.
In his new book, "On Freedom ", Timothy Snyder makes two points: First that denial of voting rights to convicted felons is a danger to democracy; and second that many states use slavery era laws to disenfranchise cities by counting prisoners as rural residents.
Good for Maine!
Hong Kong allows their prisoners to vote as well. I would imagine there are other nations, as well, who do not have such disenfranchisement as part of a prison sentence.
Naively, I never imagined that there were so many people, so many lawyers, so many elected officials driven to deprive their fellow citizens of the most fundamental right in this country, the right to vote.
This really is shameful.
See Bush, Jeb: Florida, ca. 2000. Everyone is following that playbook now.
How gratifying that Jeb's promise to W was "don't worry, we've got it covered." The Karma boomeranged into his face when he ran as the destined next president. Trump trashed him into powerlessness.
It's 1950 South all over again, except it has expanded.
I'm not an expert in election analysis, but I think it is a plausible claim that WITHOUT the 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby, the 2016 presidential election would not have turned out how it did.
The 2016 general election was the first since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. There were dozens of voter suppression laws and practices after 2013, and hundreds of thousands of people who should have been able to vote could not. Ari Berman documents all this and his work, and in his recent book, Minority Rule.
Christian nationalism is as un-American as it comes. Our founding fathers would be shitting bricks if they knew what was happening in this country today.
Of course, they knew that mixing religion and government was bad but they still supported slavery which wasn’t good, but their intentions of what this country would turn in to be is being clouded nowadays by Christian nationalists and the potential of Donald Trump winning a second term and installing Project 2025. This agenda brought to us by the most racist organization, the Heritage Foundation, which will virtually turn United States of America into a dictatorship.
It pisses me off to watch our country being attacked from within and voting is our only avenue for any remedy, yet, the Electoral College, which is a racist remnant of history that is the largest hurdle for having a true democratic republic. It should be repealed immediately— before this election is compromised by its failure to form a more perfect union.
Agreed. To underscore your point, it really pisses me off when the christo-fascists proclaim that "America was started as a christian nation."
No we were not!
And those native "American" Indians knew better.
Christian nationalism is just racism trying to wear Jesus' robes as a disguise. Jesus wasn't White, CN positions contradict his teachings and no single nation can lay claim to someone a belief system says died for the whole world.
While we're at it, not everyone believes in or follows him, so no nation should force them to do either thing, especially when his own lessons discourage it.
A quick check of the Heritage Foundation database shows that for some of those "fewer than 100 examples of non-citizens voting," charges were dropped. In other words, even that number is inflated.
Many could have been people who thought they had completed their citizenship process but had actually missed a step, such as being sworn in.
Are these self-righteous Republicans also checking for the validity of addresses listed as residences? I seem to recall Mark Meadows listing a trailer park slot as a residence. Trump uses Mar-a-lago which at least until he paid someone off, could not be a permanent residence. So he voted illegally at least once. Then there's Dr Oz, running in Pennsylvania while residing in NJ.
Hawley has lived in Virginia for years. He used his sister’s address and said he lived in the basement.
Yes Meadows in NC. Much as I love state AG Josh Stein he dropped the ball on that one.
I am volunteering as an election judge this year, in suburban Minnesota . At our training day, a man asked a question about non citizen voting. Then another man asked a follow up, then a woman. All the elderly folks ( I’m 59, no one in the room was under 40) were getting riled up, saying “ that’s not fair” when told that yes, a non citizen vote would count until it was proved the voter was not a citizen.
I asked “what percentage of the votes are non citizen”? The person leading the training said it just doesn’t happen. A non citizen isn’t going to risk a felony to vote. Hopefully they heard it. It was astounding to hear these people repeating lies they hear for Fox News or family members, afraid of massive non citizen voting in suburban Minnesota.
Incompetence in their own state laws and policies but completely ready to rush to disenfranchise voters. Republicans are “shoot first, research laws later.”
Agree that this is not fair and likely illegal, but its also technically very messy how we handle voting registration in this country and that creates ample spaces for the right to sow fear and doubt.
We all know when we get a driver's license we can be registered to vote. If non-citizen immigrants are also similarly enrolled, now they are "registered" to vote. This is different from being "eligible" to vote as a person could be a non-citizen or a felon, etc. For non-citizens, it's a crime for them to vote and to do so would likely jeopardize their ability to become naturalized in the future.
Nobody on the Trump side could care less about this difference. They have the talking points they need just based on the strange way our system works. We just need to keep hammering away on how non-citizens eventually do want to become citizens and that they wouldn't throw this away just to vote in an election.
That being said, there seem to be some real differences to what's happening in Alabama compared to Nevada. In Alabama, the governor has just taken the lazy step of comparing a list of people who were and possibly still are non-citizens to the state's registered voter list. No implication that these registered voters were actually voting - at least from this writeup.
However, what's happening in Nevada seems more concerning to me from an optics point of view. There the state is using (rather old) data that shows people who were at one time non-citizens, and many of whom could possibly still be non-citizens, on an ACTIVE voting list. It seems more work needs to be done to determine how many of these people are actually eligible to vote, but again, Republicans have all the talking points they need here.
The actions they are taking to exclude large tranches of people who are eligible to vote is illegal, but the legal and political ramifications for their illegal actions seem slight.
Even if the legal action is thrown out of court, it adds to the political noise claiming that Democratic wins are not legitimate, therefore patriots will fight against them. We saw the results of that propaganda last time, with election workers badly harassed and the Capitol assaulted by trump’s mob.
I particularly agree about the sloppiness of the system - and that applies to both the government component and the voter component. Both need to be taking responsibility for maintaining an accurate voter roll.
There should be a baseline presumption that once registered, that registration is valid until clearly established as void. The voter must have reasonable time to correct any issues. The law is correct in setting a cutoff date for changing the rolls. IMO that cutoff should apply to additions as well as deletions.
Ideally, the registrar would maintain an on-line system where voters can easily access their own information. I would require the voter to access their info every two years and electronically certify the info is correct. If you want to vote, this would be a minor burden.
Registrars should be routinely auditing the rolls using multiple information sources such as DMV and other public records. Mismatches would not automatically invalidate voter registration, but would be flagged in the system as something for the voter to review and correct.
Legislatures must adequately resource the system. In particular, they must support and fund a mechanism that prevents registration & voting in multiple states (that’s likely a bigger problem than non-citizen voting).
Your last statement says it all!
Slight, because the victims are relatively powerless and the media are not doing their jobs by reporting on the implications, the illegality, and exposing the hypocrisy.
Perhaps if Republican politicians stopped opposing policies that a majority of Americans support and came up with policies that people actually want, they could win elections without filing dubious lawsuits to keep as many people as possible from voting. Just one example: Republicans have been trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act since the day it was passed. They have been unsuccessful because a majority of Americans like the ACA. Republicans have never come up with what they think is a better plan. After 9 years, Trump has only a "concept of a plan" Gee, I wonder why voters are not reassured by that.
You're not? Reassured that is? By the Not-So-Great Pumpkin's SWORN promise to deliver new, better, cheaper and did we say BETTER Health insurance in 2 weeks a few years back that has now devolved to mere "concepts of an idea?"
For shame!
/s
Ha! I feel as reassured by Trump's "concept of a plan" for health care as I do by his declaration that he will be my "protector" and that if elected, I like all other women, will be happy healthy etc. for the rest of my days.
“if Republican politicians stopped opposing policies that a majority of Americans support and came up with policies that people actually want”…
then they would be Democrats!
Touche!
I no longer have ANY tolerance for Conservatives, Religious Organizations, or just plain registered Republican citizens. I would support legislation to deport them all in exchange for immigrants.
I consider voter-suppression evangelists to all be hateful, ignorant, racist, treasonous, Magat, PsOS. If a civil war must break out, point me to the enlistment line. I’m done with those a-holes.
BTW, I am white, 72, and my ancestors were colonizing immigrants who arrived even before we committed genocide of indigenous people and stole everything before calling it all our own.
Check your registration daily, and Vote All Blue, up and down ballot. Let nothing stop you from voting. VOTE!
That's putting it plainly. Would that other citizens emulate your example.
If cheating to win is possible the GOP will do it.
Today is my anniversary day for subscribing. 6 years! (I had to change my name in July to get MAGA off my back here.)
Thanks Judd and team for all you do.
Harris for the People!
The halloween season fantasies, lawless depravity & corruption of MAGA leadership has consequences. That the base may "lap it up" is not an excuse, but of course MSM needs to normalize the whining MAGA depravity & create a horse race…ads, eyeballs, $...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmr1owmG2aI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQt1Na560Mc
Trump's idea of stolen valor? https://youtube.com/shorts/UTJ6ZYEBgHg?si=74JzRZA7LzrrLwy6
"Harris for the People!" Not if those people are Palestinian.
I recently moved to Arizona (new work) and took a day off to register to vote in person at the Elections office. I took my US Passport, my original issue SS card from when I entered kindergarten in its old manilla envelope and still attached to the documentation (how they did it way back then), AND my birth certificate. I made sure to have all my records such as new electric bill and address info.
I completed the Arizona form so I can vote in local, county, state, AND federal elections since the federal form will not allow one to vote in local elections. Only using the AZ form allows all participation. I did all of this and made sure I had it completed with three weeks to spare of the voter registration deadline of October 7 here in AZ. I was informed it would be ‘input’ into the system within 24 hrs (business day). And they thanked me for all my documentation ‘proving I was a US citizen.’
I keep checking every day. Nothing is showing. I have called twice now. They keep telling me I have the stamped affidavit and ‘you will be fine’ and yet I absolutely do not feel fine!
Hence, I am planning to take the day off to vote in person if necessary. Mail in ballots are to be sent out in AZ on October 9th. I was instructed to ‘wait 4-5 days after’ before calling them again. 😡
The person answering the phone said they were so busy with new registrations. We must overturn Citizens United and establish a holiday for the presidential and federal elections.
These republican Cons know how to set things up for THEIR narrative. They put so much effort into cheating, projecting as always by accusing Democrats of cheating with all evidence pointing to the republiCons. They will not be able to cheat & win this time. Because this time WE will not allow it.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney who struck down the Georgia abortion law yesterday, will next take on Georgia's new election rules. I hope he rules against them. The State Gov. officials will have little time to appeal before election day!