Tag: voting

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election law Voting

A Puzzling Protest

Texas, voting, elections, citizen voting

Talk about a blowout: a few days ago, Texans overwhelmingly supported Proposition 16 to amend their state constitution to clarify that noncitizens cannot vote in state and local elections in Texas. The vote: Yes, 72%; No, 28%.

Not everybody is happy.

Jeff Forrester, who happens to be running against Rep. Candy Noble, a major sponsor of this very amendment — just a coincidence I’m sure — professes confusion about why anybody would care about this question. He asserts that the state constitution already prohibits noncitizen voting and has flung himself into a major Twitter‑X tussle over the matter with the group I lead, Americans for Citizen Voting.

Per Forrester, the Texas constitution “already states that no one other than U.S. citizens can vote” in Texas elections.

But as we point out, prior to passage of the present amendment, the state constitution only explicitly protected the rights of U.S. citizens to vote. It did not “reserve the right to vote to only [U.S.] citizens.… It didn’t prohibit Dallas from giving the right to noncitizens to vote in local elections.”

Similarly deficient provisions in the constitutions of other states have also failed to prevent cities from allowing noncitizen voting on local matters. Now, with passage of Prop 16, there is no way for noncitizens to legally vote in Texas.

Those who assert that the Prop 16 amendment is pointless protest too much. If it’s so durn redundant, why isn’t the response to this voter-​endorsed clarification simply a shrug?

Instead, we get finger-​wagging opposition.

Very “mysterious.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

Mostly Democratic

Michigan, illegal immigrants, voting, democracy, violence

An email from Voters Not Politicians (VNP) predicts that if a certain popular ballot measure gets enough signatures “it’s likely to pass.”

Great! Wonderful to see democracy in action, eh?

Not so much for this leftwing political action committee, however. “We have to keep this proposal off of Michigan’s ballot in 2026,” the email went on.

The initiative petition in question is Michigan’s Citizen Only Voting Amendment, which (1) clearly establishes that “only” U.S. citizens are eligible voters in all state and local elections, (2) mandates that the Secretary of State check the voter rolls for citizenship status, and (3) requires photo ID to vote. 

Polls have shown upwards of 80 percent of Michigan voters support the measure. Perhaps spurred on by the noncitizens who were shown to have voted unimpeded in last November’s presidential election.

How will VNP honchos accomplish their mission of suppressing a petition for a public vote on this ballot initiative? They urge folks to “learn how to peacefully disrupt circulation.” 

“Disrupt”? That doesn’t quite go with “peacefully.” 

Last month, Charlie Kirk was assassinated speaking on a college campus. According to a recent poll,* the percentage of Democrats who believe “Americans may have to resort to violence” to achieve political goals has doubled this year. Back in April, a survey found that a majority of self-​identified “left-​of-​center” respondents agreed it was “somewhat justified to murder President Trump.” The same survey found that 15 percent found it “completely justified.”

Destroy democracy to save it? 

As chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting: We won’t let you. Stop trying to block us and others from speaking. Instead, speak out against our measure to your heart’s content. 

I also suggest looking for a rallying slogan that fits better with “peacefully.” 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* From 12 percent of Democrats saying so in May of 2024 to 28 percent this year. The percentage of Republicans believing violence may become necessary is higher still — 29 percent in 2024 and 31 percent in 2025. A whopping 77 percent of the public cited political violence as “a major concern.”

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national politics & policies representation

Must the War Go On?

Gerrymander, Jerrymander, voting, elections, representation

“There is an easy way to end the gerrymandering wars,” a new video by The Recount asserts, “and no one is talking about it.”

Except them. And us. And others. 

“We need more members of Congress,” the anonymous male narrator continues. “This might sound weird, especially since most of us don’t exactly love the ones we have now. But the reality here is simple: the U.S. has the worst ratio of citizens to elected representatives of every developed democracy in the world.”

It’s true. Congressional districts have been capped at 435 since 1929’s Permanent Apportionment Act. That year, the average congressperson represented 243,000 people. That’s too many. But today, the average congressperson represents 761,000 people.

“So uncap the house,” Jeff Mayhugh and A.D. Tippet argue in The Hill, “and rein in gerrymandering at least a bit.

“Our founders believed that smaller congressional districts would lead to a better relationship between citizens and their government,” the authors contend. “Gerrymandering undermines this idea by splitting neighbors from each other or packing them in districts with others from the same party to secure a seat for the political party in control.”

And then there’s this: “Smaller districts are more representative and also harder to manipulate.”

“With more seats, districts can be smaller and more representative of smaller enclaves and communities,” explains the video presentation, “and when that happens, the chances of Republicans winning seats in Massachusetts or Democrats winning seats in South Dakota goes up.”

Entitled “Why Expanding Congress Would End Gerrymandering,” The Recount’s video also correctly points out that creating a smaller representative-​to-​voter ratio by increasing the size of the House is “fully within Congress’s power” and “doesn’t take a constitutional amendment.”

But it would take a great deal of citizen … push.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law national politics & policies Voting

Lost Their Bearings

voting, democracy, immigration, non citizen voting

“Washington, D.C. should have every right to set its own rules and policies, just as Vermont does,” argues Sen. Peter Welch (D‑VT). “The micromanagement by congressional Republicans and Trump must end.”

First, the District of Columbia is not a state. Vermont is, if you’re playing at home. 

Second, Congress and the President have constitutional authority and responsibility for our nation’s capital. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution specifically empowers Congress “To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States …”

Sen. Welch’s comments above, from last week’s Washingtonian magazine article, were in defense of the noncitizen voting law passed by the D.C. City Council, which every Republican in the U.S. House — joined by 56 Democrats — voted to repeal. (Senate action awaits.) The Vermont senator was featured because three Vermont cities also allow noncitizens to vote.

I oppose the laws in those three Vermont cities as well as in our nation’s capital. But Washington, D.C.’s law is the worst. 

Why? It allows noncitizens in the country illegally to vote. It offers the vote even to foreign nationals working in the embassies of hostile powers. For instance, China’s and Russia’s ambassadors could decide who the next mayor is … or pass or defeat ballot measures. 

Make any sense? Not a lick.

One new local D.C. officeholder is Mónica López. She is not really a “noncitizen,” just a citizen of Mexico. And one of three non‑U.S. citizens who were elected to Washington’s powerless neighborhood advisory council.

“It’s incredibly local,” López offers. “It has no bearing over anything federal.”

Really? None? She’s in a federal enclave, where the feds do their million-​billion things, and what she’s up to has no bearing on it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law term limits

Texas Range War

Texas, Gerrymander, voting, democracy, elections

Fifty-​one Democrats have left the Republic — er, State — of Texas.

Well, 51 Democratic state legislators have run past the border, all to prevent a redistricting scheme. They constitute a minority in the House, but without them a quorum cannot be reached. 

Think of it as a form of filibuster.

Or “voting with their feet.”

“Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced that a quorum had not been met after roll call,” an Epoch Times article tells us, going on to say that “House members then approved a motion for the speaker to sign warrants ‘for the civil arrest’ of the members who said they would not be there.”

Since the fleeing pols are in other states, I don’t see how that can work out.

Meanwhile, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has taken her fellow Democrats’ side and said that she would re-​district New York in favor of Democrats. “We’re not going to tolerate our democracy being stolen in a modern-​day stagecoach heist,” she said, using a colorful metaphor.

Other Democratic states have fallen in line, upgrading the gerrymandering crisis from heist to feud.

Twenty-​five years ago I wrote that “courts have struck down districts drawn to get a certain racial outcome, but have turned a blind eye to districts that arbitrarily favor one party over another. The solution to incumbents monopolizing our elections is term limits. But another key factor in promoting democracy is to stop the politicians from drawing rigged districts that squelch competition.”

Term limits sure would help, by de-​stabilizing the “property rights” the two parties feel in their favored districts with old hands firmly tied to their estates.

It’s the wild, wild worst out there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law

A Nothing in Michigan

Michigan, voting, citizenship

It’s May in Michigan and Democrats have just “introduced their first pieces of legislation to respond to what they consider overly aggressive Republican proposals to improve election security,” Hayley Harding reports for VoteBeat.

Yes, the problem is those darn Republicans wanting too much election security too fast, doncha know.

“Michigan Democrats’ election proposals sidestep the noncitizen-​voting issue for now,” was how the Michigan Advance headlined the article, in which Harding explains that “the package of bills under the Michigan Election Security Act won’t close the voter registration loopholes that may have allowed at least one noncitizen to cast a ballot that counted last year.” 

Oops! That one University of Michigan student, Haoxiang Gao, is a Chinese national, who didn’t show up for court; whereabouts currently unknown. 

Since that bombshell, another 15 cases have surfaced of noncitizens voting illegally last November. Nonetheless, Harding informs us that “the bills omit the measures Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson suggested in February as a way to prevent noncitizens from casting ballots in Michigan’s elections.”

Back then Benson “didn’t provide details of her proposal,” noted Harding, but mentioned “policies that enable us to track and retrieve” those votes “cast by voters who registered the same day as the election.”

“It could be provisional ballots, it could be additional verification or residency requirements in that moment,” the Secretary of State, now a candidate for governor (whose recent campaign announcement on state government property violated state law) offered reporters. 

Sure, her proposal could have been a lot of things.

Now we see, however, that it is nothing. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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election law Voting

Letting Noncitizens Vote?

illegal alien, voting, citizen, democracy, elections,

“All of us want to make sure only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told NBC’s Meet the Press before last year’s election. She assured the national audience that she and other Secretaries of State were following the law and “ensuring that only valid votes are counted in our states. 

“We are doing all that we can and more to ensure — as the facts show in all of our states — that only U.S. citizens are voting.”

Problem is, Secretary Benson did not ensure that only U.S. citizens voted in Michigan. Under her stewardship, we now know that noncitizens did indeed vote. 

Last November, a Chinese student at the University of Michigan registered and voted. The reason we know this is that the foreign student apparently thought better of it and asked officials for his ballot back. 

Too late, though, for Haoxiang Gao’s vote had already been counted. Last week, Gao missed a court hearing and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. (Will Beijing send him back to stand trial?)

Since that one, lone, incredibly rare, don’t‑worry-your-pretty-little-head-about-it incident, officials have discovered another 15 votes cast by noncitizens. 

Also last week in Michigan, House Joint Resolution B was defeated. This measure would have clarified only citizens as eligible voters, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to vote. Democrats, including Secretary Benson (now a candidate for governor), opposed it fiercely. 

Yet, you guessed it, something else happened last week: Americans for Citizen Voting-​Michigan filed an initiative petition to place the Citizen Only Voting Amendment, passed overwhelmingly so far in 14 states, on the ballot in the Great Lakes State. Polling back in January showed 82 percent of likely voters favor the measure. 

“Leaving holes in the process that easily allow noncitizens to vote disenfranchises citizens,” said Kurt O’Keefe, the committee’s treasurer. “We need to make sure that only U.S. citizens can vote in our elections. This initiative does the job.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

Note: I’m the national chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting. 

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Accountability Voting

The Five Million Fix

voter rolls, democracy, voting, elections, ID

Thanks to its analyses of voter rolls and numerous lawsuits, Judicial Watch can now report that, over the last several years, about five million names have been struck from voter rolls in almost a dozen states and localities.

These names unlawfully appeared on the rolls because of invalid voter registrations, as validity is defined in the National Voter Registration Act Of 1993.

According to the Act, each application to register “must state each voter eligibility requirement (including citizenship), contain an attestation that the applicant meets each requirement, state the penalties provided by law for submission of a false voter registration application and require the signature of the applicant under penalty of perjury.”

Thanks to Judicial Watch, 735,000 ineligible names have been removed from Kentucky voter rolls since 2019; 918,139 ineligible names have been removed from New York City voter rolls since 2022; and over a million ineligible names have been removed from the voter rolls of Los Angeles County.

These efforts have also led to the removal of ineligible names from the voter rolls of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina, and outside of LA in California.

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the organization. In Maryland, for example, the State Board of Elections promulgated a rule to criminalize the use of registration lists to investigate voter fraud. A district court ruled that the rule violated the law.

Voter fraud is a problem, and it hasn’t been fixed yet. Thanks to Judicial Watch for making a big dent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law Voting

Trump to Save Elections?

voting, ballot, democracy, elections

“Election fraud,” said the president. “You’ve heard the term? This will end it, hopefully.” 

The “This” being an Executive Order dated March 25, 2025, entitled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”

Interestingly, the opening unfavorably compares the American ways of voting with foreign nations. 

“In tabulating votes, Germany and Canada require use of paper ballots  counted in public by local officials,” the order explains, “which substantially reduces the number of disputes as compared to the American patchwork of voting methods that can lead to basic chain-​of-​custody problems.” The document adds that “countries like Denmark and Sweden sensibly limit mail-​in voting to those unable to vote in person and do not count late-​arriving votes.”

“It is the policy of my Administration to enforce [2 U.S.C. 7 and 3 U.S.C. 1] and require that votes be cast and received by the election date established in law,” Trump’s order states.

Well, California might have to start reporting the results of congressional races in under a month.

More consequently, the EO directs “the Secretary of Homeland Security” and “the Secretary of State” to “ensure that State and local officials have … access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered.”

The exact opposite policy from Biden’s refusal to help those seeking to enforce citizen-​only voting policies.

In full disclosure, as chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting, I helped eight states pass Citizen Only Voting Amendments last November — and six states previously. This year, South Dakota’s legislature has already placed an amendment on the 2026 ballot and, yesterday, Kansas did likewise. 

Democrats continue to push for non-​citizen voting, which liberal courts in California and Vermont have upheld for cities, and to oppose these state amendments. But last week, New York State’s highest (and quite liberal) court struck down New York City’s noncitizen voting ordinance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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ideological culture Voting

Blood in the Streets?

voting, legislature, panic, hysteria

“When you think about how dangerous it is to raise an issue like this,” Davis Hammet, president of Loud Light Civic Action, explained to a Kansas State House committee, “whenever something doesn’t need to be addressed — because you’re going to create a lot of public attention, a lot of debate on this, and very likely — not to say that anyone here, this is their intention — but there’s [sic] almost three million people in the state, some folks will have very xenophobic and potentially violent outlooks on immigration.”

Hammet then asked legislators to “consider the Garden City bombing plot,” a 2016 case in which three Kansas men were arrested and convicted of conspiring to bomb a housing complex with many Somali immigrants.

Wait … what issue — “like this” — is he talking about? 

Mr. Hammet testified against House Concurrent Resolution 5004, a constitutional amendment introduced by Rep. Pat Procter, clarifying that only U.S. citizens are eligible voters in all Kansas elections, state and local.

“This legally and practically won’t do anything,” asserted Hammet.

Far from the truth, legally. 

Kansas has the same language in its constitution’s suffrage provision as California and Vermont, where courts have upheld the constitutionality of noncitizen voting at the local level. Plus, by placing citizen-​only voting in the state constitution, Kansans can guarantee their power to vote yes or no before any future state legislature or city council could legalize non-​citizen voting.

Twenty-​one cities across the U.S. now give the vote to noncitizens, most also allow those here illegally to vote. Meanwhile,in recent years nearly 30 million Americans in 14 states have voted by whopping margins to enact Citizen Only Voting Amendments like HCR 5004, eight of those states last November. 

“But it could create fuel on the fire for some radical groups,” speculates Hammet, “to feel like they’re motivated to take improper actions.”

Yet so far without a single fatality! No fisticuffs or riots or bombings attributed to the debate or the public vote. Not one incident. 

Hammet may sound high-​minded, throwing around words like “xenophobic,” but note his paranoia about his fellow citizens handling political issues. Moreover, he fails to recognize that the policy he sees as “anti-​immigrant” is, in actual fact, overwhelmingly supported by immigrants.

So, who’s the xenophobe?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: HCR 5004 passed that committee and then passed the House on a vote of 98 to 20. The amendment now awaits action in the Kansas State Senate in order to be referred to the voters.

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