Donald Trump and his Reaccessiblean allies have repeatedly claimed that the Democrats are arrangening to get illterrible immigrants to vote in the US election.
“Our elections are terrible, and a lot of these illterrible immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote,” Trump said during the pdwellntial talk about with Kamala Harris.
BBC Verify has identified more than 100 paid-for ads on Facebook and Instagram posted by Reaccessibleans since the begin of September concentrateing on the publish.
It is illterrible for a non-US citizen to vote in a national election, but studies propose cases of this actuassociate happening are very unfrequent.
What laws are in place to stop illterrible immigrants voting?
The Illterrible Immigration Reestablish and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 bans non-citizens – which joins illterrible immigrants – from voting in federal elections.
The punishment joins a year in prison, a fine, and possibly deportation.
Every state is needd to use a frequent registration establish which needs people to validate they are US citizens, under penalty of false testimony for counterfeit claims, but does not need recordary proof.
“That first step of having to tick a box saying you’re a citizen to sign up to vote is a huge deterrent for illterrible immigrants, as it’s hugely hazardous to lie,” says Jasleen Singh, a voting expert at the liberal policy skinnyk tank Brennan Cgo in for Justice.
In many states, voter rolls are pass-referenced with citizenship and immigration services, death certificates, and postal records to originate certain that people who are non-citizens, dead, or inhabit out of state are not sign uped to vote.
“At the polls, there’s a enumerate of eligible voters, and if a non-citizen turns up, they’ll be turned away or tageder to cast a provisional ballot which will only be acunderstandledgeed if they can supply proof of citizenship,” says Prof Ronald Hayduk, a voting rights expert at San Francisco State University.
Non-citizens are not permited to vote in state-expansive elections either.
However, some municipalities in California, Maryland, Vermont and Washington DC do permit them to vote in certain local elections, such as for school boards.
What evidence is there that illterrible immigrants vote?
A number of studies, both from conservative and left-leaning organisations, propose instances of illterrible immigrants voting in US federal elections are very unfrequent.
One by the Brennan Cgo in for Justice interseeed 44 election officials who labored apass 12 states during the 2016 election.
It set up that out of 23.5 million votes counted in these states, an approximated 30 doubted incidents of non-citizens voting were referred for further spendigation.
That’s about 0.0001% of all votes cast.
An analysis of a database which accumulateed election deception cases between 1999 and 2023 by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, set up 77 instances of non-citizens voting.
A number of other inestablishs, including by the Cato Institute, a conservative skinnyk tank, entitled ‘Non-citizens Don’t Illegassociate Vote in Detectable Numbers’, come to analogous conclusions.
“According to many sources of evidence, the number of non-citizens who vote in elections is very petite,” says Walter Olson, a ageder fellow at the Cato Institute who’s written a number of inestablishs on voter deception.
“It’s not zero, some people slip thraw the cracks for various reasons, but it’s nowhere cforfeit at the level to impact the outcome of an election.”
What evidence do Reaccessibleans cite?
The Safeprotect American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a Reaccessiblean proposal which would need people to validate their citizenship when sign uping to vote, has been refuteed in the House of Reconshort-termatives.
Reaccessiblean laworiginaters persist to push for more citizenship needments.
“We have a number of states who have done audits of their voter rolls and set up thousands of non-citizens,” the direct Reaccessiblean in the House, Mike Johnson, tageder CNN.
He highairyed Ohio, Pennsylvania and Georgia – three states where polls show a safe race between Trump and Kamala Harris.
In Ohio, a appraise called for by Reaccessiblean officials in the state, set up that out of about eight million sign uped voters, there were 597 cases which have been referred for “further appraise and potential prosecution” for non-citizens sign uping to vote.
In Pennsylvania, a glitch with electronic touchscreens in state drivers’ licence centres wrongly showed non-citizens the chooseion to sign up to vote while getting new or modernized licences.
This glitch was in the system between 2006 and 2017, and has since been resettled.
In 2017, Pennsylvania state election officials said non-citizen immigrants might have cast 544 ballots illegassociate out of more than 93 million ballots in elections dating back to 2000.
In Georgia, a appraise of voter rolls in 2022 set up 1,634 people “had tryed to sign up to vote” but “were not able to be verified”, out of about seven million sign uped voters.
“Voter deception and illterrible immigrants voting is so unfrequent that this myth is to sow inquire in election integrity and lay the groundlabor to cast inquire on the election outcome,” talk abouts Ms Singh.
Reaccessiblean ads sow further inquire
BBC Verify has identified 118 paid-for ads posted on Facebook and Instagram since 1 September by Reaccessiblean truthfulates or by Reaccessiblean political groups which claim expansivespread voter registration of non-citizens, or which lift the inquire of whether non-citizens should be permited to vote in elections.
The ads we identified were shown between 7.8 and nine million times on the platestablishs.
One – which had more than 2.4 million sees – asks users to join in a poll with the inquire: “Should illterrible immigrants be permited to vote?”
Another ad posted by Congresswoman Ann Wagner, with more than 900,000 sees, asks users to answer the same inquire.
Additional inestablishing by Maryam Ahmed.
