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    • There is no evidence that non-citizens voted in Evansville
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    There is no evidence that non-citizens voted in Evansville

    Umito Posted on

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    EVANSVILLE — There are several stopgap measures to prevent noncitizens from voting in Vanderburgh County elections, and no evidence that illegal ballots could ever swing a race here, officials said this week.

    These assurances come amid continued, unfounded claims of voter fraud from presidential candidate Donald Trump, who still does not believe he lost the 2020 election. His statements have continued throughout this election cycle and reverberated through many of his supporters, his fellow Republican candidates, and the country as a whole.

    According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released last week, nearly 60% of Americans are “either very concerned or concerned about the possibility of voter fraud this year.” This includes 86% of Republicans.

    However, the chances of that happening here are minimal at best. That’s according to County Clerk Marsha Abell Barnhart, whose office oversees elections. Barnhart, a Republican, served as clerk from 1997 to 2005 and was drawn into a caucus earlier this year after former clerk Carla Hayden chose to retire. after apparently receiving threats.

    In all her years of service, Barnhart said she has never seen evidence of non-citizens voting. Especially in the kind of numbers it would take to make a difference.

    “If that happened, we’d probably catch it.” If the vote for a particular position was close, there would likely be a recount. During the recount, every vote cast is called into question,” she said. “We would probably look at voter registration to verify each person and, at some point, the lack of valid citizenship would be found.”

    Even if there were no recount, there would be no reason to worry, she said.

    “Of course, if there was a case where hundreds of illegals voted, that could change the outcome. But that would require such an organized effort that I don’t think we’ll succeed.

    That kind of hypothetical influx of new candidates would attract the attention of the voter registration office anyway.

    Connie Carrier, a longtime employee of the office and former chairwoman of the local GOP, said workers check each application by hand. They pay special attention to two simple but essential questions: Are you a U.S. citizen? And will you be at least 18 years old on or before Election Day?

    If either is marked no, it is rejected. Of course, someone can always lie, but it is a crime.

    “When you go online here to (register) to vote, if you say no, it stops at that point,” she said. “You don’t go any further.”

    Efforts to remove voters from the rolls

    But all these obstacles and the lack of evidence of fraud have not stopped states from going through – and sometimes purging – their voter rolls.

    Earlier this month, Secretary of State Diego Morales and Attorney General Todd Rokita reported the registrations of nearly 600,000 Indiana residents. – about 12% of the total registered voters in the state.

    They want U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to verify each person’s citizenship status. It’s unclear if they will, and because the election is so close, reporting won’t affect the voting status of those on the list this go-around.

    Morales outlined his concerns in an open letter to the Hoosier State Press Association.

    “I neither believe nor suspect that 585,774 non-citizens are on the Indiana voter rolls,” he wrote. “I know for a fact, however, that there are some non-U.S. citizens registered to vote in Indiana who have been issued a government ID that would allow them to vote.”

    The letter doesn’t say how he knows this. And he only gives two “real-life examples” of non-citizens registering illegally. Neither led the person in question to vote.

    Julia Vaughn, executive director of the nonpartisan government accountability group Common Cause Indiana, called the effort “nonsense” and “intimidation of Indiana’s naturalized citizens and voters.”

    “These two elected officials should be instilling confidence in our elections, not sending political press releases from their official offices,” she said in a statement to the Indy Star. “Indiana elections are safe and secure, and the attorney general and secretary of state should be above this type of political division just weeks before the election.”

    A similar effort in Virginia is more severe.

    On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling upholding the state’s efforts to remove 1,600 people from the voting rolls. Authorities have marked them as potential non-citizens, but none of this is confirmed, and at least some of them are eligible voters, SCOTUS Blog Reportedleaving several Americans disenfranchised less than a week before the election.

    Voter fraud extremely rare, surveys show

    These kinds of mass investigations rarely reveal fraud.

    Recent surveys in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, California and Texas found that a total of only 50 non-citizens voted in elections between 2016 and 2022, reported the Associated Press.

    Colorado followed the same path. In 2012, former Secretary of State Scott Gessler ordered his office to comb through the lists. He estimated there were as many as 11,805 noncitizens in state records. In the end, that number was actually 141, according to the Associated Press. Of them, only 35 voted.

    And any fraud attempt is often detected early. After a University of Michigan student and resident of China voted illegally in Ann Arbor on Oct. 27, the local clerk noticed the discrepancy almost immediately. According to the Detroit Free-Pressthe local prosecutor has already filed a felony charge against the student.

    Any similar incident in Vanderburgh County could end the same way. Under Indiana law, anyone caught committing voter fraud faces a $10,000 fine and up to two and a half years in prison.

    But as in years past, any irregularity is unlikely to occur. Officials have already tested the tabulation machines and will store mail-in ballots in a box until Election Day, secured by two locks: one controlled by Republicans and the other controlled by Democrats. Barnhart told the Courier & Press earlier this month.

    As of Wednesday, the election was proceeding as scheduled, with lines pouring out of early voting sites across the county.

    Umito
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