Officials in one of those states, Rhode Island, America's bluest statereportedly sent notices to potential noncitizens urging them to register to vote.
In 2021, Rob Locke, then director of elections at the Rhode Island Department of State and now deputy secretary and director of administration, was in an email exchange with Kyle Upchurch, program manager at the Center for Election Innovation and Research. . federalist Reported.
During the exchange, Upchurch asked about a group of residents called “eligible but unregistered” who vote. In response, Locke claimed that the state sent mail to the so-called EBU, some of whom were reported as non-citizens.
“We sent two versions of the EBU,” Locke wrote, according to an email seen by The Federalist. “One goes to people with a citizenship flag of ‘Y’ and one goes to people with a citizenship flag of ‘No’. Each PDF includes English and Spanish versions. ”
It remains unclear how many mailings were sent overall, and how many were specifically sent to non-citizens. However, the purpose of the mailing was to identify recently naturalized citizens, according to a statement to The Federalist from Faith Chybowski, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the State Department.
The text of the mailer appears to support Chybowski's explanation.
“Our records indicate that you were ineligible to vote due to your U.S. citizenship status. If your status has recently changed, You may be eligible to vote.”
The email sender also reportedly warned recipients that they must be a U.S. citizen to register to vote.
“Young voters tend to lean to the left, so why do you care whether a voter is 22 or 63?”
Unfortunately, recent attempts to clean up voter rolls in other states have revealed that non-citizens are regularly registering to vote despite the federal government's ban on voter registration. .
Virginia recently removed more than 6,300 noncitizens from its voter rolls, according to the Republican Party. Governor Glenn Youngkin“erroneously or maliciously” registered to vote. The Biden-Harris Justice Department responded by suing the state.
After facing a series of lawsuits late this summer, Arizona discovered that perhaps as many as 97,000 residents had registered to vote without providing any proof of citizenship. of state supreme court Late last month, the court ruled that those residents can still vote in state and local elections in 2024.
Rhode Island claims to have removed nearly 150,000 names from its voter rolls since 2020.
Despite a nationwide problem with noncitizens appearing on voter rolls, Rhode Island officials may not be able to force people to submit proof of citizenship when registering to vote, the Rhode Island Department of State tells The Federalist. spoke. Instead, registrants provide “certification that the signer is a citizen,” Chybowski said.
Perhaps even more alarming is that Rhode Island sent out a mailer asking for more voter registration because of its membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, better known as ERIC.
eric It bills itself as a “bipartisan” organization aimed at helping member states “maintain more accurate voter rolls and detect possible illegal voting.”
It is also entirely funded by fees paid by its 25 members, including the District of Columbia. In other words, taxpayers are paying for its survival.
However, ERIC is far from “nonpartisan.” david beckera former Justice Department lawyer whom a former colleague characterized as a “hard-core leftist” who “can't stand conservatives.”
Just a few weeks ago, Mr. Becker dismissed concerns about non-citizens voting in American elections, suggesting such reports were “a problem.”fabricated threat“These are comments from former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies.
“Remember to only look for official election information from reliable sources like election officials,” he wrote. Mid September.
Although Becker is no longer listed on the ERIC website, the organization appears to still be making election-related demands favorable to Democrats. For example, ERIC will share certain demographic information about voters, including age, with third parties.
“Young voters tend to lean to the left, so why do you care whether a voter is 22 or 63?” asked michael graylock of the Government Accountability Foundation, a federal watchdog group.
Among the third-party organizations ERIC works with is the Center for Election Innovation and Research, which Kyle Upchurch reported in 2021 to Rob Locke of the Rhode Island Department of State over “eligible but unregistered” concerns. He was the representative when he mentioned this.
And indeed, ERIC seems to be sticking with EBU. The group laments on its website that there are perhaps 51 million EBUs in the United States scattered across the country.
Tens of millions of EBUs in free countries only become a problem when individuals want to register to vote but are prevented from doing so by external circumstances beyond their control. Perhaps they don't want to register to vote, and may even have deliberately chosen not to do so. Apparently ERIC wants you to register anyway.
“ERIC was established to clean up member states' voter rolls. However, the accession agreement only requires voters to be added, not removed,” said the Election Integrity Network's Citizen Election Research Center. Director Ned Jones pointed out to The Federalist.
“Under the ERIC agreement, member states may register non-nationals,” he added.
Starting in 2021, at least nine states will part ways with ERIC, likely due to partisan activities: Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
“ERIC is a bipartisan organization and operates in a bipartisan manner,” ERIC Executive Director Shane Hamlin told the Washington Examiner in December 2023. american precision [voter] Create a directory and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens. ”
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