Journal Inquirer Editorial, Monday: ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTING IN CONNECTICUT? <read>
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill says they aren’t, but nobody has checked officially even as there is an easy way to find out.
The state Department of Motor Vehicles has issued 28,000 “drive-only” driver’s licenses to people who are living in the state illegally. New Haven has issued thousands of city identification cards to illegal aliens living there. To protect illegal aliens, these databases are kept secret, but the secretary could subpoena them and compare them against the state’s voter rolls, which are public.
Does anyone in authority want to know? Not likely.
Our letter sent yesterday:
To the Editor,
I agree with the sentiment but not the details of your editorial, dated 2/6/2017, “Are Illegal Aliens Voting in Connecticut”. The residents of Connecticut and the Nation deserve evidence to confirm or refute President Trump’s allegations that 3 million illegal aliens voted. The method proposed to compare alien driver’s licenses and registrations in New Haven to voter lists, by the Secretary of the State is inadequate and illegal. Illegal because the Secretary of the State does not have subpoena or even investigative powers. Inadequate because it only covers two segments of aliens – two segments that are taking the risks of identifying themselves. Inadequate because a secret investigation, including one by a government agency, especially of elections, should not be trusted by the public and the press.
There is a better solution which we have recommended to Denise Merrill, Secretary of the State and President of the National Association of Secretaries of State. The solution is routine, independent, and publicly verifiable audits of all aspects of election administration. With such audits, we would not be in this situation of baseless allegations of fraud and counter claims of unquestionable integrity. The science of election auditing could be used to economically provide an answer. It is estimated, that publicly, randomly selecting just 400 voters checked off as voting and determining if they voted legally could confirm with 99.7% certainty that nothing like 3 million voted illegally. That is just 400 nationwide! Publicly, randomly, selecting several hundred in Connecticut would provide more than adequate proof or refutation that our electors were correctly chosen. Note that the real issue is comparing actual voters, not the registration lists, yet those lists could also be audited with similar effort.
