AP offers this report, which begins: “Dozens of non-U.S. citizens may have voted in Bexar County elections, a county elections official reported, prompting an investigation by federal and local authorities. The names of 330 noncitizens on the voter rolls were reported by Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen.” This version of the AP article appeared in the same issue of the Dallas Morning News printing this shortened version of my Slate piece on the American Center for Voting Rights.
This prompted some readers to write me and say something along the lines of: “A-ha! The AP article shows that there is in fact voting fraud and it is not a myth.” My response is that even if cases of non-citizen voting is proven, that’s not the kind of fraud that’s been targeted by voter id requirements at the polls championed by groups such as ACVR. A voter id law only stops voter impersonation.
That said, I’ve repeatedly said that the government should take over the business of registering all voters, and confirming citizenship when it does so. That would stop a great deal of the registration fraud that takes place as a result of our private system of registration that allows bounty hunters to be paid for turning in completed voter registration cards. But registration fraud does not appear to lead to many illegally cast votes.