Illegal Alien’s Voter Registration Docs Feed Need For Better Vetting

The illegal alien who ran Iowa’s largest public school district before being apprehended by ICE claimed to be a U.S. citizen on his Maryland voter registration forms, according to records obtained by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). 

Ian Andre Roberts’ apparent false claim of citizenship exposes Maryland’s election integrity vulnerabilities and proves the need for better immigration status vetting, a foundation official asserts. The case also screams for congressional passage of a bill requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. 

‘Maryland Could Have Prevented This’

On Monday, Prince George’s County finally released to PILF Roberts’ unredacted registration files, showing that — on at least two occasions — the foreign national from Guyana facing multiple criminal charges appears to have attested that he was a U.S. citizen on regular voter registration applications. As PILF notes, regular registration includes all elections, not just elector rights Maryland has extended to foreign nationals to vote in some local elections. 

Roberts lived in Maryland for several years, working as a teacher and a school administrator. He wasn’t a U.S. citizen then, just as he wasn’t when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested the Des Moines Public Schools superintendent in late September. 

“Maryland could have prevented this had it used SAVE for voter registration verification when the Obama Administration first offered it,” wrote Logan Churchwell, research director for the nonprofit election integrity watchdog, in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “It is incumbent on Maryland and DHS work together to protect citizens and immigrants alike.”

‘It Has Never Been Easier’

The SAVE system, short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, assists federal, state, and local benefits-processing- and distribution-agencies check the immigration status of benefit applicants. SAVE is supposed to save taxpayers from picking up the tab for illegal immigrants and others not entitled to receive public assistance. 

But the system also has been used as a critical tool for states to verify that only U.S. citizens are voting in U.S. elections. Just 26 states are using or in the process of implementing the system to verify the eligibility of registrants, according to Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

Maryland is not one of those states. In fact, the leftist attorney general for the blue state recently bragged about co-leading a coalition of 16 leftist attorneys general in supporting “California’s motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit demanding complete, unredacted voter registration databases from states across the country.”

PILF’s Churchwell included Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis in his recommendation letter. Churchwell reminded DeMarinis that USCIS dramatically improved SAVE in April and November when the agency allowed queries with just the last four digits of a Social Security number. So the data on the standard Maryland voter registration form is “all that is required for a successful SAVE query.”

“It has never been easier for Maryland to adopt this tool,” the election integrity advocate wrote. 

‘Simply Unacceptable’

The enhanced SAVE program draws on President Donald Trump’s executive order on Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. USCIS says SAVE Optimization has enabled state voting agencies to submit more than 46 million voter verification queries.

But Democrats aren’t interested in such enhanced vetting tools, systems they assert could prove disenfranchising if eligible voters are mistakenly removed from state voter rolls. Besides, they insist, noncitizens rarely vote in federal elections, in large part because foreign nationals know that falsely claiming citizenship on a registration form is a felony. Ian Roberts appears to have done just that. Maryland took his word for it. 

“Elections office staffers in Prince George’s County had no option but to accept Mr. Roberts’ claims to U.S. citizenship as true without a tool like SAVE. It’s simply unacceptable to millions of Americans for this pattern to repeat,” Churchwell wrote.

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Iowa is among four red states that have agreed to settle lawsuits against the federal government over the Biden administration’s refusal to make available citizenship status for voter vetting. The settlement gives Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio access to the SAVE database and aims to improve the system. SAVE is free for election administrators to use. 

Maryland has a history of election transparency troubles. 

Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down a Board of Elections rule that “restricted and criminalized the use of voter registration lists for voter fraud and other ‘investigations,’” Judicial Watch reported. Maryland elections officials released Roberts’ records to PILF and other watchdogs in October, but the documents were heavily redacted — including the illegal immigrant’s response to the U.S. citizenship status question. 

‘Only the Democrat Party’

The left’s resistance movement against clean voter rolls and commonsense vetting measures is just as vehement with another SAVE initiative. All but a few House Democrats have voted against the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, legislation that would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. Senate Democrats have all but killed the bill. And liberals have sued to stop Trump’s executive order putting the core elements of the SAVE Act into effect. 

“President Trump has exercised his lawful authority to ensure only American citizens are casting ballots in American elections. This is so commonsense that only the Democrat Party would file a lawsuit against it. We expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” Deputy White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Newsweek in late October. 

Election integrity advocates say Maryland and other states who refuse to use Homeland Security’s immigration status program further necessitate the need for the SAVE Act. 

Churchwell commended DHS for improving the SAVE system and suggested Maryland election officials may just need a little prodding to use it. 

“Secretary Noem, the Foundation trusts that administrators for the SAVE system stand at the ready to welcome the Maryland State Board of Elections, just like that state’s Department of Human Services before them. Perhaps a formal invitation is needed to get the Board of Elections started,” the PILF official wrote in his recommendation letter. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.