Foreign election interference: Noncitizens at the polls

Despite what ABC News and other members of the mainstream media report about the lack of aliens voting, it does happen. Recently, some secretaries of state have made headlines for removing aliens from the voter rolls, including in Georgia and Ohio.

Aliens voting is no Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster myth. It is real. State government records — some obtained only after years of litigation — reveal not only how it is happening but also the most common way aliens wind up getting registered to vote.

A quick look at four important states shows this is a widespread problem that needs to be solves.

Pennsylvania is among the worst states when it comes to transparency about noncitizens registering to vote. The state acknowledged that a glitch allowed foreigners to register to vote for more than 20 years.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation has been fighting in court to obtain these alien voting records and see the steps Pennsylvania took to solve the problem for over six years. At one point, the commonwealth said the glitch could have resulted in as many as 100,000 aliens being improperly registered to vote.

In Michigan, government records show 1,444 foreigners registered to vote across 12 counties. That's a lot of votes in a state with close margins.

According to government records, North Carolina identified 1,454 registrants who appeared to lack U.S. citizenship. In the swing state of Arizona, records in Maricopa and Pima counties revealed more than 400 voter registrations were canceled because the registrant lacked proof of citizenship.

And some of these aliens did vote.

Here's the saddest part. Some of these records show the aliens answered no on the citizenship question but were still registered to vote. Who could defend this breakdown when aliens told the truth yet election officials allowed them to register anyway?

A deep dive into these government records shows the most common way foreigners get registered to vote is through the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, more commonly known as "motor voter." Under this law, if an applicant fills out the federal registration form completely, they must be registered to vote. States cannot seek proof of citizenship before registering the applicant who submits a voter registration form printed by the federal government.

Put simply, only an honor system prevents foreign citizens from easily registering to vote. All they need to do is claim to be a U.S. citizen, with no further fact-checking allowed.

For some reason, progressives have no interest in fixing this broken system that allows foreign interference in our elections. Neither does the Election Assistance Commission, which could approve state-specific instructions to prove citizenship.

Liberals says they care a lot about foreign interference in our elections. Who can forget 2016, when they falsely claimed that Russia's interference in our presidential election led to Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton.

For all their breathless concerns about foreign interference in American elections, progressives have no interest in fixing federal law that allows foreigners to get registered to vote. They also have no interest in the truth being told about the aliens who do vote.

• J. Christian Adams is president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a former Justice Department attorney and current commissioner on the U.S. Commission for Civil Rights.