Despite all the misinformation, the data tells a very clear story: voting by non-citizens is incredibly rare, averaging only about three cases a year across the country. Furthermore, Washington state's mail-in voting system is safe, secure, and accessible.
"Hi, I'm Attorney General Nick Brown, answering some of your questions about our mail-in voting system and directly addressing some of the misinformation that we've heard. Washington's voting system is safe, secure, and accessible, and as we see more attacks from the federal government on our system, it's important we remind people about how our system works. Here's the first concern that people have raised, that non-citizens are voting in our elections or that people are casting ballots for people that have died. Here are the facts. To register to vote, the Washington Secretary of State verifies you are who you say you are through records through the Washington Department of Licensing and the Social Security Administration. The state updates this information every month with state and federal records. At the national level, repeated studies have shown only a minuscule number of cases of non-citizens voting in an election. Tens of millions of votes are cast every year, hundreds of millions every two years, and yet with some of the most powerful people in the world, including the president, encouraging people to look for fraud, on average there's only three cases a year of non-citizens voting. Just for comparison, every year there are dozens of people who are killed by lightning strikes in America, nearly ten times as many lightning strike deaths as non-citizens voting in an election. I won't say non-citizen voting never happens, but it's extremely rare. We have federal election officials, state and local election officials, people in law enforcement looking for these cases, and when they happen, they should have severe consequences, but it's extremely rare. If you have any questions about our elections and our election system here in Washington, please drop your question in the comments and we'll try to answer it. And remember, vote like you give a damn. Your voice matters."
💬 Discussion
Despite all the misinformation, the data tells a very clear story: voting by non-citizens is incredibly rare, averaging only about three cases a year across the country. Furthermore, Washington state's mail-in voting system is safe, secure, and accessible.