"Non-citizens do vote, albeit illegally."
— National Commission on Federal Election Reform, 2005
The National Commission on Federal Election Reform determined that tens of thousands more voters are registered than there are people in various jurisdictions, as a result of bad law passed by Congress in 1993 and known as the Motor-Voter Act.
Radical groups, such as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (the notorious ACORN), have had a field day with this sadly flawed piece of legislation, whose proper name is the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
At one time or another, ACORN received training and legal counsel from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who also directed Chicago’s Project Vote, an ACORN subsidiary.
ACORN has received $832,000 from the Obama presidential campaign and is funded by federal taxpayer dollars channeled through government agencies, such as Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The well-funded ACORN uses the Motor-Voter Act as a club in forcing states to yield to its “Reform Now” initiatives that include registering unqualified voters.
The U.S. Constitution holds that elections are to be run by the states, except where the states have ratified amendments to the Constitution that expand voter rights. A consensus among state laws is that to qualify to vote in the United States, one must be a U.S. citizen; also one must not be a convicted felon or mentally incompetent, and since 1971, one need only be 18 years of age (down from 21).
Radical liberals in America are constantly lobbying for changes in U.S. laws not only to allow illegal aliens, convicted felons, and just about anyone else to vote in U.S. elections but to entice them to vote. Nationwide, those who oppose voting by illegal aliens and felons are faced with the “r” word (racist) and with feigned moral outrage.
Right-to-Vote Timeline
U.S. laws regulating the right to vote have evolved over 232 years, but with one constant, U.S. citizenship has remained, on the books at least, as a prerequisite for voting.
In 1776, the Continental era, the right to vote was granted to free white men of property and of certain religious persuasion (no tenant farmers, Catholics, or Jews needed apply).
Ante-Bellum Era. In the 1830s, all white men at least 21 years of age and holding U.S. citizenship were permitted to vote —religion no longer an impediment.
In 1870, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified granting the right to vote to male U.S. citizens — of all races.
In the Roaring '20s, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that the voting rights of citizens of the United States shall not be denied on the basis of sex. On Aug. 18, 1920, all women at least 21 years of age who were U.S. citizens finally were granted the right to vote.
It had taken 72 years of relentless lobbying that began July 1848 in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Another four years would pass before Native-Americans were granted voting privileges in 1924, including the right to vote in federal elections.
In 1961, the 25th Amendment granted U.S. citizens residing in the District of Columbia the right to vote in presidential elections. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), by eliminating poll taxes and literacy tests, assured racial-minority U.S. citizens of their right to vote.
A decade later, in 1971, the 26th Amendment provided that U.S. citizens of at least 18 years of age were able to vote. In 1975, the Voting Rights Act was amended to provide language assistance for minority voters who were U.S. citizens but who spoke Chinese, Eskimo, Japanese, Korean, Native American, and Spanish as their first language.
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 (UOCAVA), has had procedural problems. For example, in the 2000 national election in Florida, Democrats sought to block the votes of U.S. sailors on sea duty, whose absentee ballots were hand-delivered rather than being sent by mail.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), the notorious “Motor-Voter Act,” allows people to register to vote while applying for a driver’s license. The law also provides for federal voter registration by mail. The unintended consequences (or perhaps intended consequences) of the legislation have rendered national election rolls an utter farce. State and local officials are unable to account for millions of voters who have died or moved or are non-citizens.
Congress continues to pass enabling legislation that waters down the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens, and the president continues to sign these toxic bills into law. As a result of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), incalculable numbers of unqualified persons are voting in local, state, and national elections — albeit illegally.
HAVA permits the states wide latitude in requirements for voter identification. It accepts a driver’s license (with or without photo), the last four numbers of a social security number, utility bills, or payroll checks as being sufficient identification for voting.
Yet the majority of Americans, 75 percent in a recent MIT poll, favor strict voter identification to assure that only U.S. citizens are voting. HAVA also changed the Motor-Voter Law mail-in registration form to add the question “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?” The applicant has only to check yes, and that now constitutes voter verification.
Cloward-Piven Theory and Voter Fraud
ACORN puppeteers have adopted strategies developed at Columbia University by two professors, Richard A. Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven. The Cloward-Piven theory advocates the flooding of election offices with new voter registrations, which ACORN is doing.
The thinking is that overwhelmed election officials will be unable to stop unqualified voters from slipping through the cracks. By overrunning the electoral process, Cloward-Piven means to change the U.S. form of government from a republic to a socialist/communist oligarchy. Interestingly, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama were at Columbia University at various times when professor Cloward was pushing his “strategy for change.”
ACORN, with the support of the Democrat Party, claims to have registered 1.3 million new voters in 2008. The emerging trend is that “battleground states” are experiencing more incidents of fraudulent voter registrations than are “blue states.”
Of these new registrations, election officials estimate that 15 percent or more are invalid or false. In response, the Democratic presidential candidate serves up wisecracks, such as “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Then playing the part of defense attorney, he claims that ACORN is the victim of voter fraud rather than being the well-trained, well-paid perpetrator.
The FBI finally has begun a long overdue investigation of ACORN. If there were even a hint of possible voter fraud by Republicans, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division would have hundreds of lawyers and FBI agents on the job, long before the early voting began. In Missouri and Washington state, ACORN agents have pled guilty to voter fraud, and ACORN was fined $25,000 in Seattle for its crime, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The U.S. government is betraying its citizens to placate a parade of special interests led by ACORN. Justice delayed is justice denied.
James Wash is a former federal prosecutor.
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