An effort to remove noncitizens from voter rolls has reached a step that involves all but three Pennsylvania counties.
Elections offices in counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania will attempt to ascertain the status of approximately 8,700 registered voters.
“We know some of these are going to turn out to be eligible citizens,” said Wanda Murren, spokeswoman for the Department of State in Harrisburg Monday.
According to a statement released by the department earlier this month, “When we learned that ineligible residents may have registered to vote through a longstanding issue in the motor voter system, we knew that it was imperative to address the problem. Equally imperative was the protection of every eligible elector’s right to vote in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania….
“At this point, we are turning over information to the counties because the department does not have the authority to remove voters from the rolls.”
Murren explained the problem surfaced in conjunction with noncitizens who are legal residents of Pennsylvania legally obtaining driver’s licenses.
At their first stop at a driver’s license center, noncitizens would be required to produce their immigration documents and be given a card to be photographed for a license.
At their second stop – the photo station – under the previous system, a computer screen that contained the license applicant’s information would not include the fact the applicant was not a citizen. Regardless of citizenship status, a question in English and Spanish popped up about registering to vote.
The registering-to-vote computer system database excluded only 16- and 17-year-old drivers from the voter registration question. The right to vote begins at a citizen’s 18th birthday.
The problem that spanned several decades was changed in 2016 and again last fall through the efforts of the Department of State and the state Department of Transportation.
Now, a noncitizen never sees a motor voter question, but those who are eligible can respond to a question available in 14 languages, not just two.
The Department of State sent out forms in both English and Spanish asking those in the gray area to either affirm their eligibility, under penalty of perjury, or submit a form to request the cancellation of their voter registration.
The state informed local elections officials staff members how to handle questions if they received inquiries.
“We haven’t had any phone calls on that,” Melanie Ostrander, assistant elections director for Washington County said Monday.
Three counties that had no recipients to review were Cameron, Forest and Sullivan counties in northcentral Pennsylvania.
Credit: observer-reporter.com
