Michigan Sec of State Sued for Checking Voter Registration

You want to vote but you’re not a United States Citizen? Easy. Move to Michigan. 

You want to clean up the voter rolls so only eligible citizens can vote? Don’t run for Secretary of State in Michigan, because voting rights advocates, labor unions, and Democrats will sue you.

That’s exactly what’s happening to Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, who has claimed there are an estimated 4,000 noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. Johnson had championed efforts to have the state’s 7.34 million registered voters affirm their citizenship when they vote in November. In return for her actions, the labor unions and their cohorts are suing her.

Johnson based her estimate on an analysis she did of 58,000 driver’s licenses and state-issued identification cards which found 963 noncitizens registered to vote. 54 have a voting history and have voted a total of 95 times.  By using these figures as a yardstick, as well as figures showing there are 305,000 noncitizens living in Michigan, roughly 5000 could be on the voter rolls. Johnson used the number of 4000 to account for children.

In a rather strange coincidence, Johnson said that she could only survey one-fifth of the state because the Obama Administration would not give her access to more data. She also said she’s been rejected by the Social Security Administration and U.S. Department of Homeland Security four times in her efforts to verify the citizenship of all registered voters.

Now there’s a surprise.

Democrat election attorney Jocelyn Benson, who ran against Johnson in 2010, whined:

If someone is legitimately trying to misrepresent themselves as a citizen in order to interfere with our elections, then what’s to say they won’t misrepresent themselves a second time at the ballot box.

Johnson knows the score: she believes President Barack Obama and Democratic county and city clerks are blocking her efforts to root out noncitizen voters, noting that 80 noncitizens are registered to vote in Macomb County, where County Clerk Carmella Sabaugh, who is a Democrat, won’t let the citizenship question appear on applications to vote.

Why in the world would any red-blooded American object to checking the eligibility of voters before they vote?   Oh, wait – red-blooded American – there’s a phrase sure to turn the stomach of any liberal.