Can illegal immigrants really vote in US elections?

Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans say that the Democrats are always planning for illegal immigrants to vote in the American elections.

“Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to vote,” Trump said during a presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

BBC Verify has identified more than 100 paid ads on Facebook and Instagram posted by Republicans since early September focusing on the issue.

It is illegal for a non-US citizen to vote in a general election, but research suggests that instances of this actually happening are extremely rare.

I Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 prohibits non-citizens – including illegal immigrants – from voting in federal elections.

Punishment includes a year in prison, a fine, and possibly deportation.

All countries are like that required to use regular registration a form that requires people to prove they are US citizens, under penalty of perjury, but does not require documentary evidence.

“That first step of checking the box that says you’re a citizen to register to vote is a big deterrent for illegal immigrants, as it’s very dangerous to lie,” said Jasleen Singh, a polling expert at the liberal policy think tank Brennan. Center for Justice.

In many states, voter lists are checked by the immigration services, death certificates, and postal records to ensure that non-citizens, deceased, or living abroad are registered to vote.

“At the polling stations, there is a list of eligible voters, and if a non-citizen arrives, they will be turned away or told to vote temporarily which will only be accepted if they can provide proof of citizenship,” said Prof. Ronald Hayduk, a voting rights expert at San Francisco State University.

Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in statewide elections.

However, some municipalities in California, Maryland, Vermont and Washington DC allow them to vote in certain local elections, such as school boards.

Many studies, from conservative and left-wing organizations, suggest that the incidence of illegal immigrants voting in US federal elections is extremely rare.

The Brennan Center for Justice interviewed 44 election officials who served in all 12 states during the 2016 election.

It found that 23.5 million votes were counted in these states, approximately 30 cases of suspected non-citizen voting were referred for further investigation.

That’s about 0.0001% of all votes cast.

Analysis of a a database that collected cases of electoral fraud between 1999 and 2023 the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, found 77 cases of non-citizen voting.

Several other reports, including from the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, titled ‘Non-Citizens Vote Illegally in Available Numbers‘, came to similar conclusions.

“According to multiple sources of evidence, the number of non-citizens voting in elections is very small,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who has written numerous reports on voter fraud.

“It is not zero, some people fall through the cracks for different reasons, but there is nothing that will affect the results of the election.”

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a Republican proposal that would require people to prove their citizenship when registering to vote, has been rejected in the House of Representatives.

Republican lawmakers continue to seek more stringent citizenship requirements.

“We have a lot of states that did their voter registration and they found thousands of people who are not citizens,” the top Republican in the House, Mike Johnson, told CNN.

He highlighted Ohio, Pennsylvania and Georgia – three states where polls show a tight race between Trump and Kamala Harris.

in Ohio, a review called for by Republican officials in the statethey found that out of about eight million registered voters, there were 597 cases referred for “review and prosecution” of non-citizen registered voters.

In Pennsylvania, a problem with electronic touch screens at state driver’s license centers incorrectly showed non-residents the option to register to vote while getting new or renewed licenses.

This issue was in the system between 2006 and 2017, and has been resolved.

In 2017, Pennsylvania state election officials said noncitizen immigrants may have voted illegally in more than 93 million ballots in elections since 2000.

In Georgia, 2022 voter registration update they found 1,634 people who “attempted to register to vote” but “could not be verified”, out of about seven million registered voters.

“Voter fraud and illegal immigration voting are so rare that this myth casts doubt on the integrity of the election and lays the foundation for doubt about the outcome of the election,” Ms. Singh said.

BBC Verify has identified 118 paid ads posted on Facebook and Instagram since September 1 by Republican candidates or Republican political parties claiming full registration of non-citizen voters, or raising the question of whether non-citizens should be allowed to vote. in the election.

The ads we identified were shown between 7.8 and 9 million times on platforms.

One – which had more than 2.4 million views – invited users to take part in a poll with the question: “Should illegal immigrants be allowed to vote?”

Another ad posted by Congresswoman Ann Wagner, which has more than 900,000 views, invites users to answer the same question.

Additional reporting by Maryam Ahmed.