Critics of voter-roll enforcement love one line: This never happens. Federal prosecutors answered on Monday with 28 defendants. Operation Protect the Vote charges 28 green-card holders with allegedly registering or voting as citizens, and agents arrested 11. They’re presumed innocent, and they deserve their day in court. The rest of us deserve two things too: a state that cleans its rolls promptly and accurately, and a Justice Department that proves its numbers before it asks a judge to freeze ballots.
Prosecutors allege the defendants swore they were citizens on registration forms, in many cases voted, then denied it on naturalization paperwork. That felony counts carry up to five years, and a noncitizen voting in a federal election carries one year. I’ve sat through enough depositions to know that a complaint is a claim, and a verdict is a finding. Both matter, in that order.
