(Warrenton, VA) ... The American Unity Legal Defense Fund (AULDF) filed an Amicus Curiae brief today in the Crawford vs. Marion County Elections Board case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case centers on the State of Indiana's attempts to protect its election day operations by requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.
AULDF's brief, in support of Indiana's voter identification law, supports the state’s position by specifically asking the Court to consider the danger of non-citizens casting ballots. The Amicus brief states: "Cases and reports over many years indicate that non-citizens have voted illegally across the country."
Opponents to the Indiana law who have filed Amici briefs include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU, the Indiana Democratic Party, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). They claim: "... mandating that those seeking to vote in-person produce a government issued photo identification violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution." Further, they argue that "in-person voter impersonation fraud" - which they contend is the only problem addressed by the statute in question - "does not exist."
Yet AULDF uncovered several instances of clear, documented "in-person voter impersonation fraud" in the first city it examined. Numerous other voter frauds were also detected which could have resulted in voter impersonation frauds. Some included forgery. But others included changes in existing registration data, a pattern which has been repeated across the country. These trends, contend AULDF, could have easily led to voter impersonation fraud.
AULDF asserts that opponents to the Indiana law have failed to recognize the value of voter identification procedures in stopping actual and potential voter impersonations.
AULDF points out that illegal aliens increasingly perpetrate registration fraud. “[T]he lack of immigration law enforcement is significant," and that the threat of non-citizens impacting the election process is growing. For "illegal immigrants, voting records have a substantial value as evidence of employment eligibility."
More importantly, asserts AULDF, recent political efforts have given illegal immigrants a non-economic incentive to participate in election-related activities: to increase political “clout” in hopes of achieving immigration law changes.
Edith Hakola, Executive Vice President of the American Unity Legal Defense Fund commented, "We entered this case because the integrity of the electoral process is crucial to participatory democracy. Voter fraud breeds distrust of our government." Mrs. Hakola, a Virginia attorney who was appointed by President Reagan to the ten-member council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, also said "Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by non-citizens who fraudulently cast ballots will be discouraged from exercising their right to vote. We want the Supreme Court to consider this threat to our democracy in their deliberations."
The American Unity Legal Defense Fund is an independent, national, non-profit educational organization dedicated to preserving our historical unity as Americans into the 21st Century. AULDF’s Amicus Brief is available online at
www.americanunity.org.
