As a Russian woman with a green card illegally given the right to vote in elections in the United States

Increasingly, the names of non-US citizens are on voter lists due to hidden registration methods. In addition, in fact, nothing prevents them from voting.

Фото: Depositphotos

Elizaveta Shuvalova, a Russian citizen who only obtained American citizenship last year, told The Washington Times newspaper that in 2012, she was registered as a voter who had the right to vote and was added to San Francisco voter lists.

The fact of being on the voter lists has puzzled her. She claimed that at that time she did not have American citizenship and was not even registered to vote.

“I never registered,” Shuvalova told the newspaper. “This was news to me.”

The database listed that she registered as a Democrat in July 2012. In 2016, her registration was canceled after she informed the electoral authorities that she did not have the right to vote because she was not yet a US citizen.

“It definitely shocks me. “It’s like identity fraud because it’s not my initiative,” the woman said. “As I already said, I was not a citizen during this period of time. So what can we do about it?

But the Shuvalova case is puzzling, especially when it comes to the integrity of voting in elections. Authorities say stories like this are common in many parts of the country.

The Public Interest Law Foundation, a non-profit organization specializing in election integrity, found that immigrants are most often added to voter lists in states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.

In addition, the group claims that the majority of immigrants even managed to vote in elections. For example, in 2017, it turned out that about 5600 people in the Virginia voter lists were immigrants, and a third of them had voted in previous elections.

“Our voter registration system masks non-citizens from voting until they choose to self-report their status,” said Logan Churchwell, director of communications and research for the foundation.

As a general rule, electoral authorities must verify a registration application in other databases, such as the State Department of Motor Vehicles and the State Secretariat of State, to ensure that this person is a citizen.

However, in the case of Shuvalova, the election authorities did not determine that she was an immigrant, so she began to receive voting ballots. She received nine of them, but never voted. She reportedly returned one ballot in 2016, but only to inform officials that she is not a citizen and therefore does not have the right to vote.

A San Francisco official said that Shuvalova could easily vote in elections before 2016, and she probably would have remained on the voter lists as a voter who had the right to vote if she had not informed the officials.

He added that no one in San Francisco has yet been prosecuted for such.

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