Saturday marked the 30th anniversary of President Clinton signing Motor Voter into law.
(Alexandria, VA) – May 23, 2023: The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) released a summary of a Chicago City records that show 394 individuals who were cancelled from the voter registration roll due to non-U.S. citizenship. From this group, 20 individuals are recorded casting 85 ballots. This is not an inventory of every non-citizen vote, but only those who informed election officials they were not an American citizen.
The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), more commonly known as Motor Voter, requires DMVs to offer voter registration. Most foreigners are registered through the DMV process. The process can be as simple as checking the wrong box or signing the wrong form handed to you by a state employee – sometimes in a different language. Other times it is the mistake of an election official.
For example, some of these foreign nationals even informed election officials on the voter registration form that they were not United States Citizens but were still registered by election officials anyway. See the form below.
“On the 30th anniversary of Motor Voter, the law should be celebrated and updated,” said PILF President, J. Christian Adams. “It has led to more transparency and federally mandated voter list maintenance of deceased and duplicate registrants. Unfortunately, it has led to thousands of foreign nationals registering to vote. Congress must update Motor Voter to fix this vulnerability in our elections.”
For nearly a decade, PILF has harvested government records of noncitizen voter cancellation reports generated by local officials. These studies were carried out in places like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Nevada, California, Texas, and sanctuary cities across the nation. PILF has brought and won federal trial and appellate court cases in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas to secure access to records relating to foreign nationals registering and voting.
Read the full report here.
Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections. PILF has brought lawsuits and won victories in Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and across the United States.
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For media inquiries, please reach out to Lbowman@publicinterestlegal.org