Markwayne Mullin backs president’s unproven claims and threatens states as Democrats accuse Trump of ‘working to rig the midterms’ in advance
www.theguardian.com
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said on Friday that he was told at a White House briefing this week that the “250,000 noncitizens” figure was based on a comparison with commercial data, which is less detailed than voter records and can lead to errors.
“That 250,000 number is an irresponsible number to share given the opaque methodology that they claimed here,” Becker said,
according to Democracy Docket, a voting rights nonprofit founded by Democratic Party lawyer
Marc Elias.
Among the known issues with using federal immigration data revealed in the past is that naturalized citizens, who previously lived in the US as noncitizens, can still be listed in older records as ineligible to vote.
Fact-checking the Trump administration’s count of 250,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls
www.wbaltv.com
Is that number legitimate? Mullin presented it as a certainty, but voting experts urged caution.
First, databases are subject to errors, mistaken identities and outdated citizenship information; historically, states have found that the actual number of noncitizens registered to vote drops significantly once a large-sounding number is vetted for accuracy.
Second, the DHS data does not answer whether registered noncitizens ever cast a ballot — much less had a decisive impact on any election results. Trump and Mullin’s rhetoric gives the unsupported impression that they did.
While Trump has
spotlighted allegations of noncitizen voters for
more than a decade, it is illegal for noncitizens to cast a ballot in federal races. Violations are "routinely investigated and prosecuted," but there is "no evidence that noncitizen voting has ever been significant enough to impact an election’s outcome," the Bipartisan Policy Center
concluded in February.
President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin say 250,000 noncitizens are on four states’ voter rolls. But this is a preliminary number that is often drastically reduced after vetting.
www.politifact.com
In the past, when government officials have announced initial numbers of noncitizens on voter rolls, those figures have dropped dramatically after months of vetting by state and local officials and the media.
In 2012, then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott
ordered state officials to clear the rolls of noncitizen voters ahead of the election.
Florida initially assembled a list of about 180,000 potential noncitizens. With more scrutiny, however, officials
whittled the count to about 2,600 names, then 198,
then 85. The initial list was rife with errors, even flagging a Brooklyn-born World War II
veteran.........
Neither Mullin nor his department said how many of the 250,000 noncitizens voted and over what period.
State reviews in recent years have found that few noncitizens actually cast ballots even if they’re registered.
thefederalist.com
For the future of our country we need to pass the SAVE America Act.
