Speech #1030013984

As reported to the Federal Election Commission by each State as of October 1992and remember that the registration numbers in the 1992 election were higher. since these numbers are only as of October 1992in California. with 14 millionplus registered voters. 3 percept of that is 423.000. Florida. with 6 million voters. 3 percent would be 182.000. The 3percent requirement would mean that at least 1.37 million noncitizens to register. if all 6 States are studied. That is a huge figure. We could have set it at a different figure. but I think anyone would agree that 3 percent. if 1.37 million people are voting in these Statesand that is what it would take to trigger this. and then it would trigger it only as to the mailin and public assistance office sectionsthat is an unacceptable level of fraud. I can tell you. in my travels with immigration and refugee issues. we know that aliens fraudulently register to vote. A Federal grand jury investigating voter fraud in 1982 and 1986 reported: Many aliens register to vote so they can obtain documents identifying them as U.S. citizens. however. the number of aliens who actually voted is undocumented. We have learned that these aliens use their voters cards to obtain a myriad of benefits. from Social Security to jobs with the Defense Department. The U.S. attorney was not able to document the extent of it. The INS then went on to describe one in Florida. another State affected here. saying that: In 1989. INS surveyed a special Florida election and found that in that election. 11 percent of all ballots of foreign born voters sampled were cast by noncitizens. Furthermore. the INS reported that there is reason to believe that in this federal election. the Incidence of illegal alien voting among all ballots examined was as high as 24 percent. So we think citizenship status fraud is an issueif we are all interested in assuring that fraud does not take place. I think that this amendment is something we should adopt.