The illegal alien swing vote

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The right to vote is precious, the politicians preach. Our democracy hangs in the balance, the pundits screech.

Yes, but if we all value the sanctity of the voting process so highly, why is it that I have never once been asked to produce identification of any kind in the 16 years I have been a voter, from Ohio to California to Washington state to Maryland?

And why is it that we can't protect our elections from people who have no right to vote, no right to be here, and no right to undermine our safety or sovereignty?

While unhinged Democrats spread fear about alleged discriminatory disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens, they have supported the indiscriminate enfranchisement of untold numbers of foreign outlaws -- including suspected al Qaeda operatives and terrorist sympathizers.

Last week, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported that illegal alien Nuradin Abdi -- the suspected shopping mall bomb plotter from Somalia -- was registered to vote in the battleground state of Ohio by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a left-wing activist group. Also on the Ohio voting rolls: convicted al Qaeda agent Iyman Faris, who planned to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge and had entered the country fraudulently from Pakistan on a student visa.

In the battleground state of Florida, indicted terrorist suspect Sami Al-Arian illegally cast his ballot in a Tampa referendum in 1994 while his citizenship application was pending. He claimed the unlawful vote was the result of a "misunderstanding." State officials declined to prosecute.

You have heard about those satirical "10 out of 10 terrorists agree: Anybody but Bush" bumper stickers? There may be more truth to them than you think. John Fund, author of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy," says at least eight of the 19 September 11 hijackers were eligible to vote in Virginia or Florida while they plotted to kill Americans.

What's to stop the next foreign terrorist plotter from casting a tainted ballot in the nation he has sworn to destroy? Not much. According to the Franklin County Board of Elections, the Dispatch reports, the office simply "takes a person's word, that they're (sic) a U.S. citizen."

In the battleground state of Wisconsin, the story is the same for those who are responsible for registering other people to vote. Not only do we regularly do nothing to verify the citizenship of people voting, but we also shrug our shoulders at the citizenship status of election workers. I recently obtained a disturbing set of investigative reports from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), outlining how the city of Racine neglects to ask deputy registrar applicants for identification or proof of citizenship.

FAIR's investigation also alleges that a deputy registrar in Racine registered two individuals -- one posing as an admitted illegal alien -- and reportedly advised them to lie on their forms. The report notes that the deputy registrar -- working for the open borders lobbying group, Voces de la Frontera -- then gave the couple information on other illegal alien benefits, including employment rights and bank accounts.

Law enforcement officials in Wisconsin -- which has been swamped with voter fraud shenanigans -- have copies of the report, affidavits from the couple who dealt with the registrar and recordings of their conversations. But no action, if any, is likely until after the Nov. 2 election.

Democrats at the state and federal levels have aggressively courted the illegal alien swing vote. The most egregious example, of course, was the taxpayer-funded Citizenship USA program under the Clinton-Gore administration, which abandoned criminal background checks to naturalize 1.3 million immigrants (including scores of criminal alien felons) in time for the 1996 elections.

Ethnic and racial grievance groups, with backing from the likes of Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, have forcefully opposed basic ID requirements at the polls. And they have armies of lawyers standing by to assist them. Responsible election officials who ask for proof of citizenship will be accused of "harassment" and "intimidation." They will be accused of causing a "chilling effect" -- never mind the corrosive effect of unchecked illegal alien voter fraud on law, order and the integrity of our electoral system.

Political correctness cost us 3,000 lives on September 11. It may cost us an election on Nov. 2.

Michelle Malkin is a nationally syndicated columnist.