In a move sure to raise a few eyebrows, Colorado has “accidentally” sent out 30,000 voter registration cards to non-citizens. That’s according to a report from Colorado Public Radio.
According to the outlet, the 30,000 cards were sent to non-citizens because of a mix-up with the formatting of the query involving DMV records. In Colorado, illegal immigrants are able to obtain a driver’s license, which was apparently the nexus of the issue.
The postcards were mailed to residents last week who had non-citizen Colorado driver’s licenses. The state sends postcards every two years to Coloradans it believes are eligible to vote but not yet registered. In big letters on the front it read, “Make sure your voice is heard this November.” It then directs people to “Register to VOTE today at www.GoVoteColorado.gov.”
“The Department has become aware that approximately 30,000 EBU [Eligible But Unregistered] postcard mailers were incorrectly sent to ineligible Coloradans,” said a spokesperson for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. “The office is undertaking an internal review of the incident and will take any corrective action that is warranted.”
The office said the problem occurred when the state compared a list of potential unregistered voters from a multi-state group Colorado belongs to, with local DMV records. The DMV data included people who hold non-citizen driver’s licenses — which were created to allow people without legal residency to drive legally — but a formatting error caused the system not to flag them as ineligible.
The Democrat Secretary of State responded by assuring everyone that if these non-citizens try to register, they won’t be allowed to do so. Of course, the fallacy in that assumption is easy to spot. If the initial system meant to weed them out via DMV records didn’t work, why should anyone trust any subsequent system to do so?
There are multiple problems here. One, mail-in voting (outside of legitimate absentee voting) is terrible and ripe for abuse. Instead of having someone show an ID at an individual polling station, millions of ballots are left to essentially be validated by the honor system, as signature matching can be difficult. Mail-in voting also routinely causes unnecessary delays in vote counting, which only adds to the distrust already present in the system.
Further, giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses causes all sorts of issues given that DMV records are typically used to validate citizenship. When you flood that system with illegal immigrants, you are mixing apples and oranges in a way that guarantees “mistakes” will be made. Never mind the issues it presents in enforcing voter ID laws while in-person voting.
Lastly, ask yourself why states spend taxpayer money to send out voter registration cards anyway? If someone wants to vote, let them go register to vote. If they don’t, leave them alone. The state should not be making moves to influence that decision, especially when the state is run by partisans looking to juice turnout for their own benefit.
In short, blue state election systems remain dysfunctional. All this early voting, mail-in voting, etc. have complicated a system that simply worked beforehand. You go to a polling place if you want to, and you vote. It should be that simple. You don’t need a month of early voting. You don’t need mass mail-in voting. You don’t need state-sponsored voter registration drives.