The Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office launched an investigation back in May into the number of non-citizens registering to vote; and yesterday, Secretary Nancy Landry announced the results of that investigation.
“We were able to identify 390 non-citizens who were on our voter rolls, who are not eligible to vote, and 79 of them have actually voted in one or more elections over the past several years,” Landry said.
Secretary Landry says investigators were able to determine their citizenship after getting free access to the federal SAVE database – SAVE stands for Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements. She said in previous presidential administrations, it was $1.75 per name to search, but the Trump administration removed that charge. Landry said she will pursue legal action against those who illegally registered to vote.
“We’re appropriate. We’re going to refer anybody who has broken the law to the proper authorities to prosecute, and they’re both federal and state laws implicated,” Landry said.
Landry says especially in local races, every vote counts, and just a small handful of votes can decide the election.
“I like to use the example of my own first race in 2007. The first time I ran, the race came down to just 33 votes and that was with over 14,000 votes in that race,” Landry said.
Landry says with the signing of Act 500, it will be harder for non-citizens to register to vote, since people will now be required to prove their citizenship when registering to vote.
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