An election integrity watchdog filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Alameda County in California for not requiring noncitizen voting records to be accessible.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation claims that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters violated the 1993 National Voter Registration Act for failing to make voting registration records of foreign nationals available, Just the News reported. Also known as the Motor Voter Act, the law simplifies the voting registration process by allowing people to register to vote when they renew their driver’s licenses. The goal of the law was to increase voter participation by making voter registration easy and accessible.
According to a statement, last year, PILF requested “all records showing the number of voter registration records canceled because the registrant did not satisfy the citizenship requirements for voter registration,” as well as “records related to each cancellation including copies of each registrant’s voter registration application, voter registration record, voting history, and related correspondence sent or received by the Registrar’s Office.”
The county responded to the legal group’s request, saying that it would provide the voting records by Jan. 19 of this year after reportedly previously claiming they were unable to access them. The date came and went without the records being made available.
“For more than four months, we have been trying to obtain records about foreign nationals getting on the voter roll,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a statement. “Alameda County’s lack of transparency and utter disrespect for federal law is particularly alarming as we enter a presidential election year. The public has a right to inspect election records, including these important records that reveal mistakes and errors by election officials.”
Last year, Adams told the outlet most noncitizens are “motor voter registrations,” saying that in order to register to vote, noncitizens go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and lie, claiming they are U.S. citizens.
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“Some people, guys, say, ‘No,’ and they still get registered to vote,” Adams said. “I’ve just got stacks of voter registration forms. People will actually say, ‘No, I’m not a U.S. citizen.’ They still get on the voter rolls.”
As of last year, California, Maryland, and Vermont allowed noncitizens to vote. While states remain split over allowing foreign nationals to vote, concerns over voting eligibility continue to mount ahead of the November election as 2.5 million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the southern border during 2023.
