A report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) reveals that election officials in Alameda County, California, have registered noncitizens to vote since 2004.
“Records show foreign nationals were honest about their ineligibility during voter registration and were still accepted to vote,” the report says. “Despite their ineligibility, aliens remained on the roll for roughly four years.”
“This sampling from this county revealed two significant patterns: aliens admitted they were not U.S. citizens on the registration forms; and they often remain on the rolls for years until they try to naturalize and must ask election officials to remove them from the voter roll,” the report explains.
The earliest recorded incident dates to 2004. While the average time a noncitizen remains on the voter roll is 4 years, the longest known period of registration is 14 years, PILF notes.
PILF obtained the information after it sued Alameda County for violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993’s (NVRA) disclosure provision.
“States should enact safeguards against noncitizens registering and voting,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a statement. “These records show incompetence by election officials. When someone admits they are not a U.S. citizen, they should never be registered to vote. California has the resources and data to better verify citizenship in voter registration if only Governor Newsom had a willingness to act.”