Posted by
Too Tall in Texas on Sunday, July 13, 2008 5:26:01 PM
I know that this is a touchy subject among my friends here in El Paso and folks who live in border states. If you haven't heard of LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens) then you definately have been effected in one way by this group. Let me begin by telling you I've just read a study done by the well respected Heritage Foundation titled "The Threat of Non-Citizen Voting" by Hans A. von Spakovsky. This study details how aliens (legal and illegal) have swayed elections with their votes. Not only is this illegal, but it in effect disenfranchises the votes of legal citizens. No wonder my vote in El Paso never makes a difference!
Let me quote from this study to inform you further:
In 2006, Paul Bettencourt, Voter Registrar for Harris County, Texas, (Houston) testified before the U.S. Committee on House Administration that the extent of illegal voting by foreign citizens in Harris County was impossible to determine but "that it has and will continue to occur." Twenty-two percent of county residents, he explained, were born outside of the United States, and more than 500,000 were non-citizens. Bettencourt noted that he cancelled the registration of a Brazilian citizen in 1996 after she acknowledged on a jury summons that she was not a U.S. citizen. Despite that cancellation, however, "She then reapplied in 1997, again claiming to be a U.S. citizen, and was again given a voter card, which was again cancelled. Records show she was able to vote at least four times in general and primary elections."
In 2005, Bettencourt's office turned up at least 35 cases in which foreign nationals applied for or received voter cards, and he pointed out that Harris County regularly had "elections decided by one, two, or just a handful of votes." In fact, an alien voter was discovered to have voted in a state legislative race in Harris County that was decided by only 33 votes. Nor is this problem unique to Harris County. Recent reports indicate that hundreds of illegal aliens registered to vote in Bexar County, Texas, (San Antonio) and that at least 41 of them have voted, some several times, in a dozen local, state, and federal elections.
This problem is also a national security issue. von Spakovsky continues:
In 1994, Mario Aburto Martinez, a Mexican national and the assassin of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, was found to have registered twice to vote in California. A random sample of just 10 percent of the 3,000 Hispanics registered to vote in California's 39th Assembly District by an independent group "revealed phony addresses and large numbers of registrants who admitted they were not U.S. citizens." Eight of the 19 September 11 hijackers were registered to vote in either Virginia or Florida—registrations that were probably obtained when they applied for driver's licenses. (Empahasis added)
Now, why is LULAC a problem? They started out as a good organization and continue today to do good work among the poor latios in the community. I frequently see their vans picking up elderly folks and take them to doctor's appointments and such. But the problem is that their voter registration drives (a good idea in principle) frequently target aliens (legal and illegal) to vote. I can almost guarantee that if the voter registration records of El Paso were audited - a good 25% of those listed would in some way be disqualified due to false addresses, false identification, and flat out lies about their citizenship by those who registered them. I wouldn't doubt the same is true in towns all across TX, NM, AZ, and CA. The Heritage Foundation study also described instances of alien voters in Chicago (hmmm, cough-OBAMA-cough, gag).
The end of the study couldn't have been written better:
Requiring that our laws—all of our laws— be complied with requires no more of an alien than it does of a citizen. Election officials have an obligation not only to enforce those laws, but also to implement registration and election procedures that do not allow those laws to be bypassed or ignored. Anything less encourages contempt for the law and our election process. Lax enforcement of election laws permits individuals who have not entered the American social compact or made a commitment to the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and the U.S. cultural and political heritage to participate in elections and potentially change the outcome of closely contested races that affect how all Americans are governed.
Here, here!!