Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen has discovered more than 3,000 potential noncitizens registered to vote in the state. His office is now taking steps to remove noncitizens from the rolls.
“I will not tolerate the participation of noncitizens in our elections,” Allen said in an Aug. 13 press release. “We have examined the current voter file in an attempt to identify anyone who appears on that list that has been issued a noncitizen identification number.”
Allen’s office found 3,251 registered voters with noncitizen ID numbers issued by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the release. His office is telling local administrators to “inactivate and initiate steps necessary to remove all individuals who are not United States citizens” from the voter file.
Allen worked with “other state agencies that collect noncitizen identification numbers” and checked them against voter registrations, Laney Rawls, Allen’s director of communications, told The Federalist. She said Allen has made this a “priority” since taking office in January 2023.
Some of these potential noncitizen voters may have become citizens after initially getting noncitizen ID numbers, according to the release.
Allen’s office will inactivate these registrations and allow those who have since become citizens to update their registration with an Alabama driver’s license number, non-driver ID, or the last four digits of their Social Security number, according to Rawls.
Allen’s office is still working to determine when the noncitizen ID numbers were issued, Rawls said.
The federal government has denied “repeated requests” to help with the investigation, according to the release. Allen began contacting the DHS’s Citizenship and Immigration Services division in November 2023, requesting a list of noncitizens living in Alabama to cross-reference with the state voter file, according to Rawls.
“The Office also contacted the White House administration for assistance in getting this data and our requests have been denied,” Rawls said. The “lack of cooperation” prompted Allen to try and solve the issue on his own.
“I am hopeful that in the near future the federal government will change course and be helpful to states as we work to protect our elections,” Allen said in the release. Allen’s office is sending the registrations at issue to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall for “further investigation and possible criminal prosecution.”
“This is not a one-time review of our voter file,” Allen said. “We will continue to conduct such reviews to do everything possible to make sure that everyone on our file is an eligible voter.”
Federal mandates have directed state agencies to expand voter registration, including sending forms to noncitizens, according to Rawls. She also said President Joe Biden’s “Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting” led the government to register voters in Alabama’s federal prisons, where inmates include noncitizens.
The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood reported Biden has used the executive order to push voter registration in Mississippi prisons. According to The Daily Signal, the Federal Bureau of Prisons partners with left-leaning groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, and the Campaign Legal Center.
“Unfortunately, the federal government limits the power of states to require proof of citizenship at the time of registration,” Rawls said. Still, Allen has directed local boards of registrars to require an Alabama driver’s license number, non-driver ID, or Social Security number when registering voters.
“Allen has also demanded answers from state and federal agencies conducting these expanded voter registration efforts on how they plan to keep noncitizens from registering to vote in Alabama,” Rawls said.
Allen previously warned citizens of registering to vote through Vote411, citing concerns over data privacy. The Federalist reported that Vote411, which masquerades as a nonpartisan group, uses voter registration forms to shuttle users to a left-wing data harvesting operation.
In Tennessee, Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s election coordinator Mark Goins sent letters to more than 14,000 potential noncitizens in June, telling them to either update their information or request the state remove them from voter rolls.
Doug Kufner, communications director for Hargett’s office, told The Federalist at the time that Goins found these registrations after comparing voter registrations to data from the state’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
“This data indicates the person may not have been a U.S. citizen at the time of the transaction. The person could have been naturalized since applying for a driver’s license,” Kufner said at the time. “Tennessee law makes it clear that only eligible voters are allowed to participate in Tennessee elections.”
The letters instructed new citizens on how to correct their records, but that didn’t stop the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation from threatening to sue, according to The Associated Press. Hargett’s office sent follow-up letters, clarifying it would not remove registered voters who did not respond to the initial mailing.
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is originally from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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