by WND
Chicago’s new CityKey ID card, designed to provide legal identification to illegal aliens, the homeless and those recently released from prison will qualify as a legal form of ID for the Illinois Board of Elections to accept, said a spokesman for the agency.
But don’t worry about illegal aliens voting, he assured.
State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich told Illinois News Network the 109 local election authorities in the state have final word on which documents to accept when someone registers to vote, but as far as his agency is concerned Chicago’s CityKey will be acceptable.
The local authorities are “the ones who actually handle the registration, the checking of IDs and keeping the documentation. We maintain an electronic database of voter registrations that we get from them.”
Illinois has no state requirement to prove citizenship when registering to vote.
“When you go to register to vote, you do check a box that attests to your citizenship,” Dietrich said. “You are signing a legal document that says, ‘Yes, I am a citizen.’ But no one who registers to vote is required to bring in, for example, a birth certificate or other proof of citizenship. That’s something that you check the box, and you attest to it.”
During Fox News’ Tucker Carlson’s interview with Chicago Alderman Ameya Pawar, who wrote the law that created CityKey, Pawar claimed registrants in the state had to produce a birth certificate to register to vote – a claim shown to be untrue.
Dietrich sees two reasons the CityKey ID shouldn’t result in a spike in illegal registrations. First, while the ID is new, the process of attesting to citizenship is the same as that used in the past. Second, he believes the potential penalty is sufficient to deter illegal registration.
“The main thing that would happen is deportation,” Dietrich said. “If you’re not a citizen, and you have any thoughts of ever attaining citizenship, registering to vote is almost an instant trigger that when you apply for citizenship, you will be deported. That’s one of the first things they check.”
Illegals and others wanting a CityKey card can submit a current driver’s license, state ID, expired foreign passport, foreign driver’s license or high school or GED diploma, among others, to identify themselves.
Dietrich’s confidence that the threat of deportation is sufficient to deter illegal registrations has not been borne out in Pennsylvania where the state is being sued after an analysis identified more than 100,000 active registrants who are noncitizens.
Following revelations last year by a Philadelphia city commissioner of a “glitch” at the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles that enabled noncitizens to register to vote when applying for or renewing driver’s licenses, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an election integrity group, requested to inspect the data relating to noncitizens on the state’s rolls.
The state refused. Adding to the intrigue was the abrupt resignation of then-Pennsylvania secretary of state Pedro Cortes a month after the “glitch” was made public.
“For months, Pennsylvania bureaucrats have concealed facts about noncitizens registering and voting – that ends today,” said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of PILF.
“Before this lawsuit, the State admitted to a ‘glitch’ that exposed thousands of driver’s license customers to voter registration offers despite their noncitizen status since the 1990s. The secretary of state abruptly resigned. DOS officials blocked federal public inspection rights. The PILF hopes to finally get answers about the true scale of noncitizen voting in Pennsylvania and assist lawmakers in crafting reforms that fix it.”
“Time has run out on Pennsylvania’s effort to hide embarrassing data about how the state failed citizens and immigrants alike,” said PILF’s spokesman Logan Churchwell. “The electorate deserves an informed debate on how we address unlawful noncitizen participation in our elections. Seeking this information is step one.”
Pennsylvania’s “glitch” should be of concern to California officials who, after a WND report, insisted a new policy that automatically registers as voters adults obtaining or renewing a driver’s license would not allow illegal aliens to vote.
Ruth Weiss, vice president of the Election Integrity Project of California, isn’t convinced. With California and some localities explicitly refusing to comply with federal immigration law and declaring the state a sanctuary for illegal aliens, her organization has called on the DMV to allow an unbiased third party to monitor the department’s voter-registration process.
“What other laws are we not following?” she asked.
“Based on what we have observed in terms of the state’s reliability in effectively following other laws, we have reason to doubt on this one,” she said.
Via http://www.wnd.com/2018/02/id-card-for-illegals-valid-for-voter-registration/