Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/24/yes-democrats-want-aliens-to-vote-in-u-s-elections-take-jamie-raskins-word-for-it/
M.D. KITTLE
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As the House voted Thursday to bar foreign nationals from voting in local Washington, D.C. elections, Democrats and their public-relations team in the corporate media have rolled out the big guns in attacking such election integrity efforts. They’re painting the legislation that ensures noncitizens cannot vote in elections as the next so-called “Big Lie,” sticking to their well-worn narrative that noncitizens already are prohibited from voting in U.S. elections and that such violations “don’t exist.”
But one of the fiercest opponents of the election integrity legislation has said the quiet part out loud, as Democrats are wont to do.
‘Alien Suffrage’
As Fox News reported, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wrote a full-throated defense of “Alien Suffrage” in a 1993 paper for the American University Washington College of Law, where he serves as Professor of Law Emeritus. Raskin is ranking member of the House’s Oversight Committee, which, among other things, has constitutional oversight of the District of Columbia.
“In this Article, I will argue that the current blanket exclusion of noncitizens from the ballot is neither constitutionally required nor historically normal,” Raskin wrote. “Moreover, the disenfranchisement of aliens at the local level is vulnerable to deep theoretical objections since resident aliens — who are governed, taxed, and often drafted just like citizens — have a strong democratic claim to being considered members, indeed citizens, of their local communities.”
Not surprisingly, Raskin was among 143 Democrats voting against the Republican-led bill blocking illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals from voting in elections in the district, over which Congress has ultimate authority. Interestingly, 52 Democrats joined Republicans in passing the measure — because the vast majority of Americans believe only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in local and U.S. elections. Taking the opposing view is not a smart reelection strategy for politically vulnerable liberals.
Several cities in Raskin’s home state have allowed foreign nationals to vote in local elections for years. Takoma Park, Maryland in November celebrated its 30th anniversary “of the first non-US. Residents” voting in the Washington, D.C. suburb.
“Even if it’s only a handful voting in elections—and it’s more than that—it’s a huge step forward for democracy,” said Seth Grimes, a leftist community organizer, in an official city press release. “Non-citizens have a stake in civic affairs, and everyone should have a voice in who governs them.”
Polling shows an overwhelming number of Americans don’t share Grimes’ point of view, or the one expressed in Raskin’s law school report. A national poll conducted last year for Americans for Citizen Voting by RMG Research, Inc., found 75 percent of respondents were opposed to allowing foreign nationals to vote in their local elections.
In his 1993 paper, Raskin argued that the “emergence of a global market and the corresponding dilution of national boundaries, would invite us to treat local governments as ‘polities of presence’ in which all community inhabitants, not just those who are citizens of the superordinate nation-state, form the electorate.”
“Alien suffrage would thus become part of a basic human right to democracy,” the now-congressman wrote.
Does Raskin still feel that way? His office did not return The Federalist’s request for comment.
Media: Alien Voting Doesn’t Happen and It’s Fine When It Does
After Thursday’s vote, it’s not a leap to suspect many of Raskin’s fellow Democrats support foreign nationals voting in local elections. If they were against it, they would have voted for the D.C. election integrity measure.
Corporate media, of course, have been running interference for Democrats in the weeks since former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumed presidential nominee, and Speaker Mike Johnson announced the rollout of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The SAVE Act is aimed at shoring up glaring holes in the 30-year-old National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) passed during a simpler time, when politicians believed in borders. The bill would amend the 1993 “Motor Voter” law to require individuals to provide proof of citizenship before they are automatically registered to vote at state departments of motor vehicles and other agencies. It also requires states to remove foreign nationals from their voting rolls, something too many state election officials have been loath to do. The NVRA does not require direct proof of citizenship for voter registration.
Republicans say the legislation is crucial in the wake of the millions of illegal immigrants that have poured through the U.S. southwest border since Joe Biden took the presidential oath of office in January 2021.
“There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system, and that is the threat of noncitizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections,” Johnson said at a Capitol press conference earlier this month announcing the bill.
But the accomplice media, while conceding foreign nationals have been caught voting in federal elections, assert the act is extremely rare. Besides, the left’s messengers contend, what illegal alien in his right mind would risk committing a felony just to vote in a federal election? The New York Times accused Republicans of “Sowing [a] False Narrative.” The Associated Press asserts “Noncitizen voting isn’t an issue in federal elections,” while it acknowledges that it does happen.
“To be clear, there have been cases of noncitizens casting ballots, but they are extremely rare. Those who have looked into these cases say they often involve legal immigrants who mistakenly believe they have the right to vote,” AP admits.
So much for the idea that any illegal vote dilutes the validity of an election. Again, the corporate media like to put qualifiers on fraud, forced by the facts to acknowledge its existence but insisting it isn’t “widespread.”
“They’ve used ‘widespread’ for years as a way of downplaying any concern about it,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and Senior Legal Fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “We don’t have ‘widespread’ bank robberies but we have enough of them that we take very detailed security precautions to prevent them. Election fraud is exactly the same.”
Where Democrats Stand
Raskin isn’t the only Democrat who has defended foreign nationals voting in elections. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, has been very vocal in his support for aliens voting in New York local elections. His New York congressional colleague, leftist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has suggested the Republican-controlled House’s bill to bar foreign nationals from voting in D.C. is reminiscent of the days of slavery.
“They’re singling out the residents of the District of Columbia and expanding in the history of disenfranchisement that goes all the way back to the legacy of slavery,” she said last year.
James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said the bill aims to rectify the D.C. City Council’s decision to “recklessly allowed non-citizens to participate in elections in our nation’s capital.”
“This move by the Council was irresponsible and subverts the voices of American citizens,” Comer said in a statement. “Today, Congress took action and I applaud the passage of legislation that will now prohibit non-citizens from voting in District of Columbia elections.”
The House bill pertaining to D.C. elections and the SAVE Act aren’t going anywhere this year with a Democrat-controlled Senate and a president who appears to be running a Democrat Party future recruitment drive. But Americans, many of whom don’t support illegal aliens and other foreign nationals voting in U.S. elections, know where the party stands heading into the November election.
“Rep. Raskin is okay with the ‘dilution of national boundaries.’ I am not. And neither are the majority of United States citizens,” said Jack Tomczak, national field director for Americans for Citizen Voting, which is leading a growing national effort to amend state constitutions to include citizen-only voting language.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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