# data[].attributes.headline
Immigrants aren't allowed to vote in presidential elections.

# data[].attributes.subject
Immigrants aren't allowed to vote in presidential elections.

# data[].attributes.body
By coming up with a compromise, there will be less arguments and protests with immigrants coming to  America wanting to become true citizens and vote. Many people have attempted to vote anyways and have gotten in serious trouble with it. in the future, there will be less acts of disobedience if this is fixed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
November 2016 | View the Full Report (PDF)

The United States sends election monitors around the world to help discourage fraudulent balloting. But, here at home, it has largely turned a blind eye to the possibility that fraudulent voting by noncitizens could influence the outcome of an election. Our voter registration system is susceptible to abuse by noncitizens.

In addition, noncitizens and illegal aliens are counted when apportioning congressional districts and when allocating state electors under the Electoral College. This means noncitizens play a role in determining how many congressional representatives a state has and exert an indirect influence on presidential elections.

U.S. Elections Are Vulnerable to Noncitizen Voting Fraud

Mass immigration has had a significant effect on American electoral politics. Despite the fact that it is a crime for aliens to vote in federal elections, noncitizens and illegal aliens are counted when apportioning congressional districts. ¹ This means that areas with large numbers of illegal alien residents gain additional representatives in Congress.

In addition, there is evidence that both foreign nationals who are lawfully present in the United States and illegal aliens have voted in recent elections. During this election cycle, noncitizens have been discovered on voter registration rolls in both Virginia and Pennsylvania. ² And the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York recently announced that it charged a Canadian woman with making a false claim to citizenship after she registered and voted in more than 20 elections. ³

Several past elections - for the presidency and other offices - have been extremely close. Accordingly, ballots cast by noncitizen voters have the potential to improperly alter the outcome of elections. Consider how close the 2000 presidential election was. Could the outcome have been affected by noncitizen voting? The answer is yes.

With the 2016 election fast approaching, and candidates publicly alleging that the system is rigged, the possibility exists that voting by noncitizens could significantly influence the results. Many immigrants' rights groups contend that noncitizen voting constitutes a harmless misunderstanding of the rules and should not cause great concern. However, this approach undermines the rule of law. It also enables individuals whose interests may not coincide with those of the American people to exert influence on our domestic politics. Given the rate at which both the legal and illegal alien populations have been allowed to grow, the United States should be concerned with ensuring that the electoral power of U.S. citizens is not undermined and with protecting the United States from foreign influence through "diaspora diplomacy."

Noncitizen Voting Is Illegal

Elections in the United States are governed by a complicated mix of federal, state, and municipal election laws. As a rule, noncitizens are prohibited from voting and are subject to criminal penalties if they do.

State Elections

With very limited exceptions, noncitizen voting is illegal under the relevant statutes of all fifty states. ⁴ However, laws requiring voting registrants and voters to establish proof of citizenship have been repeatedly challenged in recent years. 5 The most frequent objections to these reasonable measures are that voter fraud is a "myth" and that voter ID requirements will unreasonably interfere with the right to vote. 6 However, these claims seem patently unreasonable given that there have been numerous reports of unlawful voting by aliens but no virtually no reports of voters being disenfranchised. ⁷

Marking a disturbing new trend, several municipalities in Maryland have begun allowing noncitizens to vote in town elections; and the City of Chicago now allows noncitizen voting in school advisory council elections. 8 To date, no state has extended noncitizen voting beyond municipal elections. This, however, remains a major area of concern. State efforts to extend the franchise to noncitizens undermine the rule of law; blur the distinctions between citizens and noncitizens; and render U.S. elections susceptible to both fraud and foreign influence.

Federal Elections

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) requires that persons registering to vote in federal elections affirm that they are United States Citizens. Failure to do so is a crime punishable under the following statutes:

Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 611, it is a crime - punishable by a fine and up to one year in prison - for an alien to vote in a federal election.

Pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1227, any alien who has voted in violation of any Federal, State, or local constitutional provision, statute, ordinance, or regulation is deportable.

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg-10(2) any false statement concerning an applicant's citizenship status that is made on a registration form submitted to election authorities is a crime.

Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 911 knowing and willful false assertions of United States citizenship in order to vote are punishable by up to three years in prison.

Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f) it is a criminal offense for an individual to make a false statement or claim that he or she is a citizen of the United States in order to register or to vote.

Noncitizen Voting Is Easy

The United States does not currently issue any general-use document intended to confirm both identity and citizenship. While a U.S. passport may be used for both these purposes, it is a travel document. Most people seek a passport when planning a trip and only a relatively small proportion of the population holds a passport at any given time. ⁹

As a result, the preferred form of documentary identification in the United States is the drivers' license. Drivers' licenses are issued by the states, pursuant to a widely varying body of state-specific laws and regulations. Currently, twelve states and the District of Columbia allow illegal aliens to obtain a drivers' license. ¹⁰

Congress attempted to address these issues with the Real ID Act, enacted May 11 2005, which established standards for state-issued licenses and other identity documents - including verification of immigration status. However, only 24 states and territories are currently compliant. 11 Many of the allegedly compliant states have continued issuing licenses and state ID cards to illegal aliens and short-term visitors. ¹² Others - such as Delaware Utah - have continued to issue "driving privilege cards" or other non-license documents. ¹³

The intentions behind the Real ID Act also continue to be thwarted by certain provisions of the NVRA. These provisions, known as the "Motor-Voter Law," require state departments of motor vehicles to act as voter registration proxies. The information supplied by license applicants doubles as voter registration information and the registration process has become nearly automatic. Because so many states continue to issue driver's licenses to noncitizens, it is relatively easy for aliens to commit voter fraud through the Motor-Voter system. When renewing a driver's license by mail, they simply check the boxes indicating that they wish to be registered as voters and affirming that they are a U.S. citizen. Most often, they are added to the voter rolls without any attempt to verify the applicant's citizenship.

There Are Few Deterrents to Noncitizen Voting

There have been a significant number of alien voter violations alleged in recent years. Yet, there appears to be a stunning lack of federal interest in this issue. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission published its last report on Election Crimes a decade ago in December 2006. 14 This 23 page report mentioned noncitizen voting once, only to note that it had been addressed in media reports. The most recent version of the Department of Justice's report Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses was issued in 2007. 15 Ostensibly a manual addressing how the Justice Department handles federal election offenses it devotes only three and a half pages to noncitizen voting violations.

Reports of alien voter prosecutions are difficult to find. The Heritage Foundation notes that as few as 300 cases involving voter fraud have been successfully prosecuted since 2010. 16 Apart from the aforementioned case in the Western District of New York, voter prosecution cases do not appear to be a priority for the Justice Department. The same appears to be true for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The ICE website lists a 2011 arrest of an illegal alien charged with voter fraud. 17 No other election-related prosecutions appear to have been posted. A diligent search of the Internet will produce several accounts of state arrests for egregious instances of illegal voting but this is clearly not a prominent issue for state prosecutors.

Federal and state lack of interest in election offenses is not an indication that noncitizen voting is a minor problem. It is only an indication that election authorities are failing to prosecute violators. Inattention to the phenomenon of noncitizen voting and a failure to impose effective penalties against those who cast votes fraudulently has rendered laws against such activity a paper tiger, without deterrent effect. If the problem is allowed to continue, it will inevitably lead to questions about whether the results of U.S. elections truly reflect the political inclinations of the American people.

How Much Noncitizen Voting Is Going On?

There is widespread awareness that illegal immigration is a massive and growing problem in the United States. Estimates of the illegal population vary between 11 and 20 million. FAIR believes there are likely between 11 to 13 million illegal residents. In addition to the illegal aliens already in the country, the Census Bureau estimates that the illegal alien population is growing by a minimum of 500,000 per year.

Combining the estimated numbers of both legal and illegal aliens, there appear to be at least 26 million non-U.S. citizens in the United States at any given time. The bulk of them are lawful permanent residents and illegal aliens (a total of 22 million). The balance consists of roughly 1.6 million tourists and other brief-stay visitors; and approximately 2.4 million long-term visa-holders, such as students and temporary workers.

Many politicians are taking firm stances on issues affecting migrants, including amnesty, entitlements and sanctuary city policies. This gives noncitizens a significant incentive to register as voters and cast a ballot. For example, in East Chicago, Indiana, a city with 30,000 residents, voting fraud was so systemic in 2003 that the State Supreme Court ordered a new election with heightened verification. When unlawful voters were prohibited from casting a ballot the outcome of the election changed. ¹⁸

The problem is not unique to Indiana. A 2013 National Hispanic Survey study by Republican pollster John McLaughlin asked a sample of 800 likely Hispanic voters if they were American citizens. 13 percent admitted they were not. ¹⁹

In 2014, a study released by a team of professors from Old Dominion University and George Mason University estimated that approximately 6.4 percent of noncitizens voted In the 2008 presidential election. They also surmised that 2.2 percent voted in the 2010 midterm election. 20 In addition, the study estimated that 80 percent of noncitizens who appeared to have voted cast their ballots in favor of one party. Noncitizens are believed to have voted in these elections in numbers great enough to have affected the outcome.

Nate Silver, an acclaimed statistician with the forecasting firm Five Thirty Eight, calculated that states with newly implemented voter ID laws will experience turnout decrease by as much as 2.4 percent of the registered voter population. 21 Opponents of voter ID laws claim that any decreases in voter turnout are evidence that legal voters have been disenfranchised - discounting the possibility that the reductions are due to decreased participation by non-citizens. But, as Silver has noted, this argument doesn't make sense because the vast majority of adults in America hold some form of photo identification and states with voter ID laws offer qualifying documentation at minimal or no cost. While it is impossible to prove that Silver's entire 2.4 percent estimated turnout decrease is entirely attributable to noncitizen voters, it is highly likely that foreign nationals without authorization to vote will constitute the majority of this group. And Silver's numbers are consistent with the results of other studies more specifically focused on reducing unlawful noncitizen voting.

If we take the mean of these three estimates -- 7.25 percent -- and apply it to just the 22 million non-citizen residents currently in the United States, then approximately 1.6 million non-citizens vote every year. According to the high and low estimates here, that number could be as high as 2.9 million (at 13 percent of 22 million), or as low as 528,000 (2.4 percent of 22 million). Both are unacceptably high numbers.

Conclusion

There is enough evidence of noncitizen voting to indicate that it is an ongoing problem that may have a significant effect on American electoral poitics. Due to the low risk of penalty, and the lack of effective controls, alien voting is easy. In states without ID requirements, the only check against noncitizens registering to vote is a box on the application form asking registrants to confirm they are U.S. citizens. Given the fact that this affirmation is rarely verified and few violators are ever prosecuted, it is a pointless exercise that does nothing to deter voter fraud. In states with voter ID requirements, the lack of a single, standardized document that demonstrates both identity and citizenship makes voter fraud all too easy.

If the United States wants to eliminate the possible appearance of elections determined by fraudulent voting, procedures must be adopted to verify the eligibility of new voter registrants, and to verify the identity of voters when they cast ballots, with the application of penalties for those who register and/or vote fraudulently. If there is no real penalty for illegal voting, it is unreasonable to expect that an "honor system" to keep ineligible persons from voting will be effective.

The good news is that the problem could be relatively easily addressed through true compliance with the Real ID Act, the implementation of voter ID requirements for all federal, state and local elections, and the consistent use of an automated eligibility verification system like USCIS' Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program which provides a fast, secure and efficient verification service for federal, state and local benefit-granting agencies to verify a benefit applicant's immigration status or naturalized/derived citizenship.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Noncitizens, Voting Violations and U.S. Elections

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The United States sends election monitors around the world to help discourage fraudulent balloting. But, here at home, it has largely turned a blind eye to the possibility that fraudulent voting by noncitizens could influence the outcome of an election. Our voter registration system is susceptible to abuse by noncitizens.

# data[].attributes.body
At one point in time gay marriage was illegal. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/gay-marriage-supreme-court-politics-activism/397052/
i believe that one should be able to love whom ever they love. But this situation caused a lot of disturbance around the world. However, one man stood up and decided to get his rights of loving who ever he want legalized

# data[].attributes.body
When she was shot, she changed about how women education, now the women can go to school with no consequences.It is was important because now women can go to school without any problems

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Girls Can Change the World-But We Have to Invest in Them First

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Activist Malala Yousafzai writes that if we want a brighter future-for them and for ourselves-we must invest in female education today.

# data[].attributes.body
The blacks,white were showing civil disobedience ,they got spit on, coffee thrown on them and arrested.Now blacks can sit anywhere with no problem

# data[].attributes.body
Gandhi and thousands of Indians had there use of salt taken away. So they decided to walk miles to get their salt. In the end they all got their salt back respectfully with no harm.
https://www.history.com/topics/salt-march

# data[].attributes.body
There have been many cases of racism among groups of people that have caused large protests. because of these outbursts, many people civilly stand up for what they believe is right, which includes all of these acts of discrimination. Many people are protesting for their rights because they feel as if they are still being treated unfairly. This could change the future if we just stopped treating others unfairly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the days that immediately followed the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, I attended one of the many rallies held across the nation in support of efforts to dismantle racism, and its emblems.

The crowd in Santa Fe, N.M. consisted of activists, individuals and families, and they all had similar words of dismay on their lips. They all voiced similar prayers of comfort. Following the visible resurgence of the most hateful emblems of racial animosity in Charlottesville, Virginia - the KKK, the neo-Nazi movement, and televised images of hordes of white men chanting "Blood and Soil!" - the country reeled. We found ourselves grappling with our most pernicious "Here we go again."

We find ourselves in a moment where the present resembles the past. The ugliest iconography in modern history returns. The language that led to tragedy in the past leads to a death in the present. Yet again.

Significant numbers of Americans have seen the events, including the televised symbols of hate, and since then they have felt hurt and befuddled by imagery irreconcilable with their notions of the place their country should be.

What happened in Charlottesville? In the literal sense, violence ensued when heavily armed militia, white supremacists and neo-Nazis gathered at the University of Virginia campus to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from the campus. Counter-demonstrators met the white supremacists, leading to clashes. One of the right-wing supremacists, a man named James Alexander Fields, was arrested for murder when he allegedly drove his car into a group of peaceful counter demonstrators, resulting in the death of 32-year old Heather Heyer.

Heather Heyer's death was pointless, reinforcing the moral decay of the white supremacists in Charlottesville. Heather Heyer was a white activist who died in the cause of civil rights activism, like Viola Luizzo in 1965. Yet it is 2017 and here we are, adding new names to the lists of black and white civil rights martyrs that included the nine victims of the church massacre in South Carolina, and now, Heather Heyer..

Some say the violence may have spiraled partially because Charlottesville police failed to keep the two rallies separated - but white supremacist gatherings often embrace violence.

The question of why vitriolic hatemongering and violent racism sustains its grip in this country cannot be separated from the question of why the nation elected Donald Trump into the office of the Presidency - a person who fantastically attempts to placate the situation by blaming "both sides" even though the violent proclivities of the right-wing faction was self-evident.

President Trump has irresponsibly downplayed, if not denied the entire history of racist violence, which has been as been inextricably linked to white supremacist ideologies like a horse and a carriage.

I happened to meet a very young woman in the crowd at the rally in Santa Fe who told me she was a college student in Charlottesville (spending her summer vacation in Santa Fe.)

I naturally asked her for her local impressions. She had been away from Charlottesville over the past month, but she believed that until recently "everyone got along."

She thought race relations in Charlottesville had suffered a setback following the protests and she emphasized that the leaders of the militias and other violent groups were not locals. But she was inspired that the counter demonstrators overwhelmingly outnumbered the invading hate groups.

I agreed with her whole-heartedly on the last point. I grew up in the South myself - and still frequently visited home - so I challenged her emphasis on "outsiders." Her optimism was good-willed, yet smacked of a typical white inclination to only want to see a partial picture of a major problem -whether to blame "both sides" like Trump, or to believe the entire problem lay with sinister and manipulative "outsiders."

I asked if she'd often heard the heinous and calculated racist Southern myth that "the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery?" Yes, she admitted, she had. Often.

What about the immense racial economic disparities in the South? Hadn't she noticed how many white Southerners and conservative governments took those historic disparities for granted?

Today I live in a state with a very small black population. I have heard racist comments against Arabs made by people who apparently believed I would not mind because I was black, not Arab.

Together, the young woman from Charlottesville, Virginia and I decided that for all the lip service given to anti-racist ideals, the reality remains that millions of Americans have not confronted America's never-ending "Yet again."

The real work following this rally would come when she and I faced Americans who give lip service to Martin Luther King's ideals, but prefer to "sit on the fence," never acknowledging or discussing systemic racism, historical racism, or racism in the criminal justice system. For as long as millions of whites choose to let their voices remain muted, silence remains complicity.
Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a writing fellow for the Center for Community Change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Racism: Charlottesville Provides Another Example Of The Never-ending 'Here We Go Again'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the days that immediately followed the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, I attended one of the many rallies held across the nation in support of efforts to dismantle racism, and its emblems. The crowd in Santa Fe, N.M. consisted of activists, individuals and families, and they all had similar words of dismay on their lips.