Posted on 01/16/2005 4:43:38 PM PST by mdittmar
Officials are investigating how at least 35 foreign citizens, and possibly dozens more, were allowed to vote in elections in Harris county.
One of those illegal voters was a 73-year-old Brazilian woman whose registration was canceled in 1996 after she acknowledged on a jury summons that she was not a U.S. citizen.
But the following year she was again given a new voter card, which wasn't discovered until recently. Records show that since 1997 the woman voted at least four times in general and Democratic primary elections, most recently in November.
Last year, at least 35 foreign citizens either applied for or received voter cards by checking a box on the application saying they were U.S. citizens, said Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, who also is the county's voter registrar.
"If they check yes and they're not a citizen, there is no database that is open to the public that I know of that you can check against," he said.
Bettencourt is investigating at least 70 other possible violators and will send a list of suspected offenders to the Harris County district attorney.
Bettencourt said he believes the majority of non-citizens registered to vote were signed up by third party groups conducting mass voter-registration drives and there was probably no intent to deceive his office.
The best way to ensure that foreign citizens are unable to continue registering and voting is to have Congress pass a federal law setting up some form of citizenship verification, he said
.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based group that advocates reduced immigration, wants a "national citizenship verification procedure" to ensure that voters in U.S. elections are citizens.
"Making false claims of U.S. citizenship is all but impossible to detect," said federation president Dan Stein.
Some states and municipalities have allowed foreign citizens living in the United States to vote. Texas, for example, didn't require voters to be U.S. citizens until 1921.
Several municipalities in Maryland allow foreign residents to vote in local elections. Similar proposals are under discussion in New York and San Francisco.
But Arizona voters in November passed Proposition 200, which requires, in part, that new voters provide proof of U.S. citizenship before being allowed to register to vote.
Information from: Houston Chronicle,
He only did that because Eaker turned you in!
The clerk/recorder in Santa Barbara County seems to be clueless.
Ah,it was so peaceful.......
You may have a point.
OK, I'll confess.. I ran the envelope through the postage machine at work.
So he violated the company's rights. In effect.
And they are based in Germany and opposed the war-on-terror so I'm happy all the way around.
Granted, my logic is skewed but so am I.
I found this website on www.theterryAndersonsow.com
It looks like a gathering place so people all over the country can attend meetings and be active just about anywhere against illegal immigration.
http://immigrationcontrol.meetup.com/
The fact that we go to the trouble to search the the voters' rolls for illegal voters and prosecute them instead of just whining about sealing the borders is the lesson one should draw from this article.
People voting illegally is a local crime problem, not an immigration problem. Treat it as a crime problem and it can be solved. Treat it as an immigration problem and it will just get worse.
Don't mess with Texas! YEEEEE HAW!
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Given Houston's willingness to become "Little Mexico", one must doubt how much zeal will be applied in searching for illegal votes. Probably not much. That's the way this illegal alien thing works. Even in Houston.
Illegal voting is of course a crime. Treating it as exclusively a crime problem, as you advocate, would be to ignore the root cause of much of it--illegal aliens. While the open borders/amnesty gang would prefer that approach, it isn't going to wash with the rest of us--"us" meaning those people that still believe strongly in national sovereignty. And we're in the majority--by far.
New poll up!
Do you believe the Bush Administration should inform Mexico's interior secretary that there is no 'right' for Mexican citizens to work in the United States?
Yes 96% 2204 votes
No 4% 98 votes
Total: 2302 votes
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
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