Schmidt: Could Be 'Tens of Thousands' Of Non-Citizens Who Registered To Vote In Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) -- Philadelphia election Commissioner Al Schmidt told state lawmakers this past week that there may be tens of thousands of non-US citizens who have registered to vote in Pennsylvania…and that for their sake, state officials should try to contact them.
Commissioner Al Schmidt told a Senate committee that many of the non-US citizens who registered to vote in Philadelphia, perhaps unwittingly, did so through a glitch in the state's motor voter system. While the known cases number only several hundred, he says they are all self-reported. Schmidt says more than 100,000 PA driver's license numbers with Immigration and Naturalization Service indicators match with voter registration records. That doesn't mean that there are that many non-citizens registered to vote, but…
"We're not talking about an insignificant number here," said Schmidt. "We're talking about a potentially very significant number of thousands and tens of thousands."
Schmidt says those people should be contacted. Besides the issue of election integrity, he says registering to vote – even unintentionally – will derail an immigrant's path to US citizenship.