Unpacking the Myth of Widespread Illegal Voting in Federal Elections

[jross]

There are many claims and dismissals of illegal aliens voting in Federal Elections.  Let's do some research to answer these questions.

1. Do Illegal Aliens vote in Federal Elections?
2. How Can an Illegal Alien Vote in Federal Elections?
3. Why Doesn't the System Prevent This 100%?
4. How Can We Know How Many Actually Vote?
5. What party do Illegal Aliens vote for?

[mspart]

Answer to #2.   Motor/voter registers anyone who gets a drivers license.  If you are in a sanctuary state, you cannot be asked your immigration status so you can vote.   There is a reluctance to verify citizenship for voters because that would be too onerous on people who cannot easily prove citizenship.   In states like mine, we have mail in voting so there is more preventions that cannot happen.   The only proof I should be able to vote is my signature.  If they don't like it, then I have to go and do battle.   I like going to the polls and showing my ID.   It couldn't be easier. 

mspart

[Caveira]

5 minutes ago, mspart said:

Answer to #2.   Motor/voter registers anyone who gets a drivers license.  If you are in a sanctuary state, you cannot be asked your immigration status so you can vote.   There is a reluctance to verify citizenship for voters because that would be too onerous on people who cannot easily prove citizenship.   In states like mine, we have mail in voting so there is more preventions that cannot happen.   The only proof I should be able to vote is my signature.  If they don't like it, then I have to go and do battle.   I like going to the polls and showing my ID.   It couldn't be easier. 

mspart

But IDs are totally racist.   Poor poor minorities are to whatever to be able to figure out how to get them on their own.  

Don’t be racist lol 

[Tripnsweep]

46 minutes ago, jross said:

There are many claims and dismissals of illegal aliens voting in Federal Elections.  Let's do some research to answer these questions.

1. Do Illegal Aliens vote in Federal Elections?
2. How Can an Illegal Alien Vote in Federal Elections?
3. Why Doesn't the System Prevent This 100%?
4. How Can We Know How Many Actually Vote?
5. What party do Illegal Aliens vote for?

1. It happens occasionally but it's usually more of a mistake than something malicious. We had a Canadian citizen who voted illegally a few years back and I think she ended up getting probation and a fine. I don't think the few people who do this really understand what they're doing. But it's such an anamoly I would guess it's happened very few times. 

2. I would guess there's a few ways this might happen. If somebody commits full on identity theft and registers that's one way, but then they've committed a host of other crimes so voting illegally is not the main problem. The other is oversight in the registration process, which even though mistakes are sometimes made, isn't really indicative of some widespread thing. Like any other large bureaucracy mistakes and oversights happen. 

3. Statistically it is such a rare thing that trying to prevent this from ever happening wouldn't be efficient and would make it more difficult for people to register or vote. Like when Florida (I think) required people getting welfare to drug test. It cost more to do that than it did for the small numbers of people on welfare who used drugs cost the state. Which is why it got scrapped. 

4. When it does happen, unless somebody is committing another crime like identity theft, it's pretty easy to find out. 

5. Who's to say? 

The idea behind this post is flawed. For somebody here illegally there is no incentive to vote or even try to. Let's apply some logic here. 

Imagine you have crossed the border or arrived here and you have friends or family already here and you get a job washing dishes at a restaurant for minimum wage. The idea of your continued presence and ability to make money relies on your ability to not do anything that would attract attention to yourself. So putting down your name, address, and personal information on a form to submit to the government, where it is also clearly marked that doing so is against the law, seems like the kind of thing that would be an extremely bad idea. But suppose you aren't caught, maybe you got drunk and filled it out, and by some miracle it's not rejected by whatever local authority processes voter registration. Then the big day comes and you decide to go vote. Either you are possibly stupid enough to believe this is OK and nothing bad will happen, or you don't care about the consequences and think nothing bad will happen by showing up somewhere in person and making your presence known to some element of the government and think this is a great idea. 

I might understand if there was some incentive to vote. But there isn't. So unless it's a mistake, or somebody is really stupid or something, then it's not a regularly occurring thing. 

[uncle bernard]

41 minutes ago, mspart said:

Answer to #2.   Motor/voter registers anyone who gets a drivers license.  If you are in a sanctuary state, you cannot be asked your immigration status so you can vote.   There is a reluctance to verify citizenship for voters because that would be too onerous on people who cannot easily prove citizenship.   In states like mine, we have mail in voting so there is more preventions that cannot happen.   The only proof I should be able to vote is my signature.  If they don't like it, then I have to go and do battle.   I like going to the polls and showing my ID.   It couldn't be easier. 

mspart

There are a lot of broad statements here. One major problem with our system is that each state has different requirements for voting in what is supposed to be a federal election. This should be standardized. I've yet to see a Republican support such standardization despite the fact it would really help identify eliminate cases of potential fraud.

There's also an even easier fix to all those. All citizens with valid social security numbers should become automatically registered to vote when they turn 18. The government already has a list of every single person who is supposed to be able to vote, and for some reason, we decide not to use it? It's asinine. This is what Canada does and it works really well.

 

[Tripnsweep]

Oh and to address the drivers license thing. People who are here illegally in most states cannot get a driver's license. Even when a non citizen can get a license, at least here anyway, there is a specific designation and form filled out. So somebody who can get a license isn't registered to vote. It's not automatic if you're a citizen either. 

[jross]

17 minutes ago, uncle bernard said:

There are a lot of broad statements here. One major problem with our system is that each state has different requirements for voting in what is supposed to be a federal election. This should be standardized. I've yet to see a Republican support such standardization despite the fact it would really help identify eliminate cases of potential fraud.

There's also an even easier fix to all those. All citizens with valid social security numbers should become automatically registered to vote when they turn 18. The government already has a list of every single person who is supposed to be able to vote, and for some reason, we decide not to use it? It's asinine. This is what Canada does and it works really well.

Every qualified citizen should automatically have the chance to vote, but there is something to be credited for the personal agency of manual registration.  Though I'd say registration at vote time is fine! Just having an SSN isn’t enough to verify eligibility for registration... Just look at the chart for the count of SSNs issued to non-citizens through the Enumeration Beyond Entry program.   There should be high-quality, real-time verification across the federal and state level (one vote, living SSN, documents match, ...).

[uncle bernard]

22 minutes ago, jross said:

Every qualified citizen should automatically have the chance to vote, but there is something to be credited for the personal agency of manual registration.  Though I'd say registration at vote time is fine! Just having an SSN isn’t enough to verify eligibility for registration... Just look at the chart for the count of SSNs issued to non-citizens through the Enumeration Beyond Entry program.   There should be high-quality, real-time verification across the federal and state level (one vote, living SSN, documents match, ...).

Regarding the SSNs, of course. But for the same reason you can post a chart showing how many were issued by year, the SSN administration also knows exactly which SSNs are citizen or non-citizen, and therefore eligible to vote or not. That's a non-issue.

"but there is something to be credited for the personal agency of manual registration."

Why? Doesn't showing up to vote show personal agency by itself? Why do we need an additional level of personal agency to be allowed to exercise our personal agency?

Why stop at one additional level at that point? Maybe we should have to register to register to vote to vote? Or maybe we should have to register to register to register to vote to vote? Maybe the best way would be to register to register to register to register to vote to vote? It's completely arbitrary.

[mspart]

Notice the SS numbers to noon citizens was relatively low compared to Joe's time in office.  It would be interesting to see more years before this. 

mspart

[uncle bernard]

33 minutes ago, mspart said:

Notice the SS numbers to noon citizens was relatively low compared to Joe's time in office.  It would be interesting to see more years before this. 

mspart

This is due to a change in the Naturalization request form that happened in 2024. Immigration applicants used to have to go to a separate office to apply for a non-citizen SSN. Now they can do that straight on their naturalization form. The process is more efficient so more people are actually getting the SSNs they're supposed to be getting as part of the application for citizenship. This makes sure they have proper work authorization and are paying taxes.

That's why, if you look closer at the graph, 2025 under Trump is actually on track to exceed 2024. The current column only reflects the first 3 months of the year.

[JimmySpeaks]

The sanctuary state I live in wouldn’t even take my drivers license.  I offered it up and was told you don’t need it.  They asked my name, I told them,  They turned the IPad around towards me and asked “is this you and your correct address”?  I said yes and was allowed to vote.  

[fishbane]

Under what circumstances would a non-citizen qualify for a SSN? I think this would only be permanent residents/green card holders, correct?  I wouldn't think illegal immigrants qualify for one and would instead be issued a Individual Taxpayer ID Number (ITIN).  These aren't actually SSNs, but have the same format as SSNs.  The SSNs 900-00-0000 and above are reserved for ITINs and are not actually Social Security numbers.

I am not sure why SSNs are such a focus for this effort.  There will be a few issues with trying to use them to determine if a registered voter is eligible to vote in federal elections.  They are not required of US citizens, so it is possible for a person to be eligible to vote without a SSN, though it will rarely be the case.  More importantly they aren't required to register to vote in many places so not having an SSN matched with a voter registration will not be nearly as rare.  Being unable to match a SSN with a registered voter doesn't mean the person is ineligible to vote.  

If the person registered to vote at the DMV and the person has a REAL ID compliant ID than a SSN would have been required, so it can be useful for people that registered in that manner.  However many states still issue non-real IDs which cannot be used for ID Federal purposes, but can be used to drive and some people might have registered before REAL ID or have a older non-REAL ID that is unexpired.