Noncitizens across U.S. find it easy to register to vote, cast ballots

Russian national surprised to be on rolls in San Francisco

A Russian national or any other noncitizen can easily influence a U.S. election by simply registering to vote in California — just ask Elizaveta Shuvalova.

Ms. Shuvalova said she didn’t even know her name was added to the San Francisco voter rolls in 2012, when she was a 21-year-old Russian citizen living legally in the U.S. but ineligible to vote.

“I’ve never registered for anything in my entire life,” said Ms. Shuvalova, who became a U.S. citizen early last year. “This is news to me.”

The Washington Times obtained a San Francisco County voter log that detailed Ms. Shuvalova’s registration history and presented the document to her.

It showed that she signed up as a Democrat in July 2012 and that her registration was canceled in May 2016 after she told election officials she wasn’t a citizen. Her registration, as a Republican, was reactivated in March 2017.

“This is definitely a shocker to me. It is like an identity fraud because this is not coming from my end,” said Ms. Shuvalova, who now lives in New York, works as a personal trainer and calls herself a Democrat. “Like I told you, I haven’t even been a citizen during that time frame. So what can we do about it?”

More of a shocker is how easily Ms. Shuvalova was registered to vote in California without a citizenship check. Conservative watchdogs say the problem is surprisingly common across the country.

Noncitizens are signing up to vote in states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia, according to research by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that advocates for election integrity. The foundation found that a large percentage of those noncitizens managed to cast ballots, too.

Ms. Shuvalova was signed up — possibly without her knowledge — by an organization circulating a petition for a 2013 ballot initiative to stop a massive condominium development on the San Francisco waterfront.

A signed registration card was submitted with the petition to qualify Ms. Shuvalova as a petition signer, said John Arntz, director of the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Activists often hand in stacks of registration cards with their petitions, he said.

Election officials say they conduct routine cross-references of voter registration information with databases at the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and the secretary of state’s office but did not flag Ms. Shuvalova as a noncitizen.

The box for “vote by mail” was checked on her registration card, and the county began sending her ballots.

County records show she received nine ballots but never voted.

The only ballot returned to the election office was in May 2016, a month before the state’s Democratic primary, with the words “not citizen” written on it. Her self-identification as a noncitizen was noted on the voter log.

The county canceled Ms. Shuvalova’s registration at that time.

Yet she was somehow reregistered again a year later, about the time she became a citizen. Four months later, she moved to New York but remained on the California voter rolls.

Ms. Shuvalova said she doesn’t recall registering to vote either time or returning the ballot saying she wasn’t a citizen.

Mr. Arntz said nothing would have prevented Ms. Shuvalova from voting prior to 2016 and she would have remained on the voter rolls if his department had not received the ballot with “not citizen” scrawled across it.

But he didn’t think the Shuvalova case represented a broader problem.

“If it was a problem, this would be an issue that comes up every election or something we would have experienced more through time. But it doesn’t,” he told The Times.

“This is the first instance that I’ve actually had a conversation like this,” he said. “So, no, I don’t think it is a problem. I don’t think there’s many records out there like this.”

The Public Interest Legal Foundation said it already has other examples from Mr. Artz.

Logan Churchwell, communications and research director for the foundation, said Ms. Shuvalova’s file was one of more than two dozen records gleaned from San Francisco, based on a request for other self-reported noncitizens.

In six of those cases, the noncitizen also had a voting history.

“Our voter registration system masks noncitizens and allows the opportunity to vote until they decide to self-report at their own peril. All of this could have been prevented if states actually verified citizen eligibility upfront,” Mr. Churchwell said.

In response to the inquiries by The Times, Mr. Arntz said the Shuvalova case would be forwarded to San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon for review.

“This voter did not recall completing a registration affidavit in 2012. So then the question would go potentially to whoever organized the petition circulation,” he said.

Mr. Arntz said he was almost certain that nobody had been prosecuted in San Francisco for being a noncitizen on the voter rolls during his 16 years at the department.

“I can’t remember forwarding an allegation that someone was a noncitizen who registered to vote or did vote,” he said.

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Justice: Trump Supporters Can Now Sue San Jose Cops For Feeding Them To Protesters

In a huge victory for constitutional rights, Trump supporters in California have been given the go-ahead to sue the city of San Jose and its police force for allegedly putting them in danger following a campaign event in June 2016.

According to the lawsuit, San Jose police officers deliberately funneled Trump supporters into waiting hoards of violent protesters as they filed out of the McEnery Convention Center following the rally:

After the rally at the McEnery Convention Center, police directed those in attendance to leave from a single exit. There, according to the lawsuit, they were ordered to head out onto a street where hundreds of anti-Trump protesters were waiting, even though a safer route and other exits were available.
Apparently, San Jose police only protect and serve those with whom they agree. But would you expect anything less from the law “enforcement” of a sanctuary city?

Twenty plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim they were beaten or struck by objects thrown by the protesters. Indeed, there is extensive video footage of anti-Trump protesters both verbally and physically attacking Trump supporters outside the convention center, usually entirely unprovoked.

At the time, Americans across the country slammed San Jose police for not doing more to curb the violence and protect rally attendees. However, San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia praised his force “for both their effectiveness and their restraint” and argued that “additional force can incite more violence in the crowd.”

Thankfully, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t see it that way. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs and wrote a damning indictment of the police in their decision:

The judges ruled that if what the supporters allege in the lawsuit is accurate, “the officers acted with deliberate indifference to a known and obvious danger” and “violated the Trump supporters’ constitutional rights.” […]

“The attendees allege the officers shepherded them into a violent crowd of protesters and actively prevented them from reaching safety,” Judge Dorothy Nelson wrote in the decision.

“The officers continued to implement this plan even while witnessing the violence firsthand” and even though they knew about the earlier attacks outside the convention center, the Chronicle reported. She also noted that if the allegations in the lawsuit were proved, it would show police bore responsibility for the attacks.

It seems that even members of law enforcement suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome – ironic, given that Trump has been a far greater champion for law enforcement than Barack Obama ever was. Furthermore, it’s highly disturbing to think that Trump supporters aren’t given equal protection within their community just because of their political beliefs. If deliberate police negligence occurred in San Jose, then all parties should be held accountable within the fullest extent of the law.

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Fight for the Value of Your Citizenship

A growing push around the country to allow noncitizen voting is diluting the rights of citizens.

Has there been a constitutional change recently that we’ve all missed? Recent news articles report that Democrats are working to allow noncitizens to cast ballots in elections around the country.

Yep. You read that correctly.

In the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights, the rights guaranteed for voters are directed to citizens of the United States of America.

Yet the push to expand voting rights to noncitizens has been deemed “another good step forward” by Portland, Maine, Mayor Ethan Strimling, among too many others. Strimling is, of course, a Democrat who cites President Donald Trump and his enforcement policies as his motivation for backing such policies. But don’t think that Maine is the only locale featuring the move by leftist organizations to allow noncitizens to vote.

Across America, not surprisingly in Democrat bastions, the efforts are rooted in local municipal elections, yet the implications of local decisions have had very real consequences at the federal level.

In Maryland, according to The Washington Times, there are 11 small municipalities that permit noncitizen voting. Chicago and San Francisco both permit noncitizens to cast ballots in school elections and, now, the Commonwealth People’s Republic of Massachusetts may follow suit. Some want to pass a state law in response to home-rule petitions that have been signed and submitted by Amherst, Brookline, Cambridge, Newton, and Wayland. There was a hearing last Tuesday in Boston at the request of City Council Chairwomen Andrea Campbell, the goal of which was to find “ways to make city elections more inclusive.”

While Democrats rationalize that it’s just local school board races and municipal elections that are currently impacted, let’s think for just a moment. Is this not validating that noncitizens have their children in taxpayer-funded schools — consuming resources while not fully paying their tax burden? Is it not at the local level that sanctuary city laws originate to stand opposed to a collaborative effort with federal law enforcement to detain and transfer criminal illegal aliens into federal custody for arrest? Is it not also at the local level that trend-setting laws, such as those that push the minimum wage higher than the federal designation, catch on and spread?

Oh the irony: The very group of people screeching loudest about Russian election meddling is consistently and continually rejecting provisions to protect the value and integrity of elections. They oppose simple photo ID requirements while they are increasingly and brazenly working to secure voting rights for individuals who have decided to ignore current law regarding legal immigration — all in order that they can impact existing and future law. On the one hand, Democrats hide behind allegations of the “racist” disenfranchisement of potential voters by requiring voters prove their identity with a picture ID. On the other hand, they work to dilute the votes of law-abiding citizens with ballots cast by individuals who don’t respect American culture and law?

Democratic Socialists don’t respect America as the greatest nation on earth — one that affords to its citizens rights and Liberty that are the envy of the world. Today’s Democrats work to circumvent law, process, and mutual respect, whether it’s voting, speaking in public, or protecting this nation’s most valuable resource — our citizens.

Patriots, it’s time to firmly plant our energies and commitments in unity toward the effort to rid this nation of its internal enemies. Go vote for those who understand the value of the American treasure of citizenship.

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Federal Judge Rules That Albuquerque's Asset Forfeiture Created an Unconstitutional Profit Incentive

"There is a realistic possibility that forfeiture officials' judgement will be distorted by the prospect of institutional gain."

A federal judge has ruled that Albuquerque's civil asset forfeiture program violated residents' due process rights by forcing them to prove their innocence to retrieve their cars. Under civil forfeiture laws, police can seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity, even if the owner isn't charged with a crime.

The city of Albuquerque "has an unconstitutional institutional incentive to prosecute forfeiture cases, because, in practice, the forfeiture program sets its own budget and can spend, without meaningful oversight, all of the excess funds it raises from previous years," U.S. District Judge James O. Browning wrote in an order filed Saturday. "Thus, there is a 'realistic possibility' that forfeiture officials' judgment 'will be distorted by the prospect of institutional gain'—the more revenues they raise, the more revenues they can spend."

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm, filed the lawsuit in 2016 on behalf of Arlene Harjo, whose car was seized after her son drove it while drunk.

"It's a scam and a rip-off," Harjo told Reason at the time. "They're taking property from people who just loan a vehicle to someone. It's happened a lot. Everybody I've talked to has had it happen to them or somebody they know, and everybody just pays."

Harjo was one of thousands of Albuquerque residents whose cars were seized under the city's aggressive forfeiture program. While lawsuits have forced cities like Philadelphia to reform their programs, federal judges have for the most part been unwilling to directly address the issue of profit incentive.

In a statement, Institute for Justice attorney Robert Everett Johnson said the Institute "will undoubtedly use this decision to attack civil forfeiture programs nationwide."

"Today's ruling is a total victory for fairness, due process and property owners everywhere," Johnson continued. "The court ruled the government must prove that an owner did something wrong before it can take away their property. Beyond that, the judge ruled that law enforcement cannot benefit financially from revenue generated by a forfeiture program. Together, these rulings strike at the heart of the problem with civil forfeiture."

Law enforcement groups say civil forfeiture is a vital tool to disrupt drug trafficking and other organized crime. But civil libertarians note that there are far too few safeguards for property owners and that the profit incentive leads police and prosecutors to go just as often after everyday citizens rather than cartel bosses.

New Mexico essentially banned civil asset forfeiture in 2015, but Albuquerque argued the state law didn't apply to its own city codes and continued to seize cars.

City officials offered to give Harjo her car back for $4,000—a typical settlement tactic—but she refused to pay up. The city then returned the car in an attempt to render her lawsuit moot and keep its program intact. But in a opinion issued in March, Judge Browning allowed the case to proceed, warning the city that Harjo had raised plausible claims that the city's profit incentive and hearing process violated her constitutional rights.

Shortly after the March opinion was released, Albuquerque officials announced they were ending the city's forfeiture program. But Saturday's decision is still important: Two other New Mexico local governments continue to flout the reform law and seize vehicles, and almost no state or local police departments have complied with new reporting requirements for forfeiture activities.

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