Media contact: media@asianlawcaucus.org
Asian Law Caucus Condemns Trump Administration’s Dangerous and Unsubstantiated Accusations of Ineligible Voters in California
SAN FRANCISCO – On Thursday, President Trump announced new attacks on state elections and American democracy. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters to the California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania Secretaries of State demanding cooperation with the administration’s latest unproven accusations on Friday. The move is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to use federal power to interfere in state elections and scapegoat non-citizen voting, despite clear evidence that the occurrence is exceedingly rare.
Asian Law Caucus, the nation’s first Asian American legal and civil rights organization, issued the following statement from Executive Director Aarti Kohli:
“I hope every American is seeing what is happening right before our eyes: The Trump Administration is flinging desperate and unsubstantiated attacks on our elections. Trump forced himself on your TVs and phone screens trying to undermine your confidence in the integrity of our elections in real time. But we won’t let it happen.
“Let’s get the facts straight. Fact: California’s elections are among the safest and most secure in the nation. Fact: 200,000 voters would be less than 1% of registered voters in California, but that already dwarfs every credible estimate of how often non-citizens end up on the rolls. Fact: DHS has offered no evidence that a single one of these registrants ever cast a ballot, and no explanation of how it arrived at this number. Fact: Researchers and think tanks – from even the conservative Heritage Foundation’s own election fraud database, alongside the Brennan Center – have consistently found that noncitizen voting is extraordinarily rare, accounting for under one-hundredth of one percent of votes cast in one study.
“Americans, regardless of party affiliation, should be able to cast their ballots free from baseless attacks on the legitimacy of their votes. Not only do we reject the Trump Administration’s accusations, we refuse to be distracted by them. Instead, I want California voters to know this: your elections are safe, fair, and extremely secure.
“We have seen this playbook before. Time and again, the Trump administration has sought to cast doubt on our elections and the Americans who get to participate in them. We’ve seen it recently with his renewed pressure on Congress to pass the SAVE Act, a bill with the clear intent to see fewer people vote. And we see it in the administration’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread unlawful voting, which likely stem from running voter rolls through the “Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements” program, or “SAVE,” an inaccurate federal data system with a track record of flagging citizens as non-citizens. In Missouri, for example, more than half the voters SAVE flagged as non-citizens turned out to be citizens. The Trump administration is spreading baseless accusations, all to sow fear, division, and confusion.
“At a moment when Americans are struggling with the rising cost of living, the last thing we need is another manufactured crisis. So, while the Trump administration looks for distractions, the Asian Law Caucus and our coalition partners are doing the work: training and deploying poll monitors across the state, running an election day hotline, and staying in direct communication with local election officials and the Attorney General‘s office to keep our elections secure. That is what protecting democracy looks like, not fearmongering, but people on the ground making sure every eligible voter can cast a ballot and have it count. We will continue to defend every eligible American’s right to vote, protect the integrity of our elections, and ensure that facts – not fear – guide our democracy.”