by Julie Archer, Deputy Director
One of several legislative moves that have us feeling trapped in a time loop is the House Judiciary Committee’s advance of a resolution for a proposed constitution amendment prohibiting non-citizens from voting in any election held in West Virginia. As I noted in a statement provided to the committee, this is already against the law in every state of the union. See the statement below for our full remarks. Sadly, politicians keep scapegoating immigrants while ignoring or denying real threats to our democracy. This conspiracy-driven nonsense diverts time and attention from solving the many real problems facing our state.
And that’s not all! The committee will (again) consider a bill that criminalizes distributing absentee ballot applications. Applications, NOT ballots. This is becoming another perennial favorite! HB 2400 will have a chilling effect on those who work to encourage voting by prohibiting the distribution of a public document available for download from the Secretary of State’s website, making it harder for vulnerable West Virginians to get the assistance they need to make their voices heard in our elections.
To top it all off, Secretary of State Kris Warner has announced that one of his priorities for the 2025 legislative session is to tighten voter ID requirements by eliminating non-photo documents, such as utility bills and bank statements, as acceptable forms of identification. Strict voter ID laws are voter suppression, plain and simple. Like non-citizens voting, voter impersonation is extremely rare. It’s vital to protect the integrity of our elections, but we can’t let false allegations and exaggerated claims of voter fraud keep West Virginians from voting. The Secretary of State and legislature should be working to eliminate barriers to voting instead of making it more challenging. Stay tuned!
WV CAG Statement in Opposition to HJR13: A Misguided Constitutional Amendment on Voting Rights
We oppose HJR 13 which proposes to add a ban on non-citizen voting to the state constitution. The supposed scourge of non-citizen voting is a non-issue. West Virginia and every other state have multiple checks in place to ensure that only eligible citizens can vote. To even register to vote in state and federal elections, you must swear you’re a citizen under penalty of criminal prosecution. In fact, under federal law, a non-citizen could face up to five years in prison simply for registering to vote. It’s also a deportable offense for noncitizens to register or vote. Despite the numerous safeguards in place to ensure that only U.S. Citizens vote in our elections, some politicians have spread this falsehood to undermine trust in our elections and justify restrictive voting policies that end up doing more harm than good by disenfranchising eligible voters.
Flawed studies have fueled false and exaggerated claims about non-citizen voting rates. Yet, every legitimate study ever done on the question shows that voting by noncitizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare. This conspiracy theory has been debunked countless times. The Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan law and policy institute has compiled numerous studies that rebut the myth of non-citizen voting here. They also document the damage caused to our democracy by those who peddle the lie that non-citizens are voting in significant numbers.
The conservative Heritage Foundation has actively promoted claims about the risk of noncitizens voting in its efforts to encourage states to enact restrictive voting policies. However, its own data suggests how rare these instances are. A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s database of election fraud cases found only 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023. Additionally, the American Immigration Council, which advocates for immigrant rights, also analyzed the Heritage Foundation data and found most noncitizen voting cases involve legal immigrants and many had been incorrectly told they could vote. That analysis found only 10 cases involving undocumented immigrants since the 1980s.
The one time in modern history that a non-citizen registered and attempted to vote in West Virginia, he was caught, charged, and eventually deported according to testimony before this body by representatives of the WV Secretary of State’s Office. Of the 35 West Virginia election fraud cases in the Heritage Foundation database (1982-2024), only one mentions registering and voting by a non-citizen. If you feel you must address foreign meddling in our elections, you might consider doing something about the real threats posed by the use of artificial intelligence to spread misinformation and a broken campaign finance system that allows foreign companies and oligarchs to use super PACs and dark money groups as conduits for illegal campaign contributions.
West Virginia faces real problems, such as population loss, the foster care crisis, overcrowded prisons, opioid addiction, and dependence on uncompetitive fossil-energy industries. We suggest that you solve some of these problems before wasting your time chasing down bogus conspiracy theories that marinate in right-wing social media and cable news. The people of West Virginia deserve better. We believe that an increased focus on real problems and reality in general is a better use of your time and attention than this amendment.
Sources:
Brennan Center for Justice, Voting and Citizenship, a compilation of studies that rebut the myth of noncitizen voting. https://www.brennancenter.org/series/voting-and-citizenship These include:
- Sean Morales-Doyle, “Noncitizens Are Not Voting in Federal or State Elections — Here’s Why,” Brennan Center for Justice, April 12, 2024. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/noncitizens-are-notvoting-federal-or-state-elections-heres-why
- Allison Anderman, “The Damage from Conspiracy Theories About Noncitizen Voting,” Brennan Center for Justice, October 10, 2024. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/damage-conspiracy-theories-about-noncitizen-voting
Heritage Foundation Election Fraud Map/Database, https://electionfraud.heritage.org
National Immigration Forum, “The Myths and Truths of Non-Citizen Voting in the United States,” May 7, 2024.https://immigrationforum.org/article/the-myths-and-truths-of-noncitizen-voting-in-the-united-states/
NPR, “6 facts about false noncitizen voting claims and the election,” Nov. 5, 2024. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/12/nx-s1-5147789/voting-election-2024-noncitizen-fact-check-trump
Bipartisan Policy Center blog, “Four Things to Know About Non-Citizen Voting,” March 13, 2024. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/
American Immigration Council, “Unpacking Myths About Noncitizen Voting — How Heritage Foundation’s Own Data Proves It’s Not a Problem,” Aug. 1, 2024. https://immigrationimpact.com/2024/08/01/myths-about-noncitizen-voting-heritage-foundation-data/
Michael Waldman, Testimony on “American Confidence in Elections: Preventing Noncitizen Voting and Other Foreign Interference,” May 15, 2024. This testimony cites multiple sources on foreign influence threats posed by the deployment of artificial intelligence to spread information, and details how the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United allows foreign funds to enter and influence American elections.https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/testimony-american-confidence-elections-preventing-noncitizen-voting-and