by Natalia Mittelstadt
While Democrats are pushing for overseas voting in the November election, Republicans and election integrity advocates are sounding the alarm about possible fraud that could occur with mail-in ballots sent from other countries.
As the Democratic Party pushes for more foreign mail-in ballots in a tight presidential race, Republicans and election integrity advocates are concerned about verification of foreign voters and their ballots.
Military and overseas voters may vote from outside the U.S. due to federal regulations Uniformed and Foreign Nationals Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). To apply for a UOCAVA ballot, a voter must provide a Social Security number and a state-issued driver’s license or identification number, which are used to verify the voter’s identity.
In August Democratic National Committee announced that it is investing in “Democrats Abroad” for the first time in the presidential election cycle. There are about 9 million Americans abroad, about 8% of whom are registered voters in the 2020 election. An estimated 6.5 million Americans living abroad are eligible to vote, according to Democrats Abroad.
The DNC says about 1,625,136 Americans live abroad from the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. By comparison, in the 2020 election, 44,000 votes from Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin won Biden the White House. The Get Out the Vote campaign raised over $450,000 from the DNC and private donors, Policy reported.
Democrats want to significantly boost the number of UOCAVA ballots cast.
In 2020 it was 913,734 UOCAVA ballots counted. This amount increased compared to 2016, when 671,243 UOCAVA ballots have been counted. A total of 38 states and Washington, D.C. let the Americans who have never lived in these locations to cast an absentee ballot there if they meet certain criteria.
These may be UOCAVA ballots returned by e-mail in 25 states and Washington, D.C., while 10 states allow those ballots to be returned through an online portal.
UOCAVA ballots can have a significant impact on the closeness of the election. The Real clear policy poll average shows Harris has a 2.2-point lead over Trump nationwide, with the vice president at 49.1% and the former president at 46.9%.
Former President Donald Trump last month raised concerns about UOCAVA voting.
“Democrats talk about how hard they are working to win the millions of votes from Americans living abroad. They are actually getting ready to SCAM! To obtain ballots, they intend to use UOCAVA – a program that sends ballots abroad by e-mail, without the need to check citizenship or identity. (Foreign interference?)” Trump posted on the Social Truth website.
“Remember how they say we have the ‘most secure election ever’ and everyone can get their ballot mailed to them! They want to weaken the REAL voice of our beautiful military and their families, whom Comrade Kamala completely disregarded and abandoned. Republicans must act to stop them from stealing our military votes. TO WATCH! Remember, IF YOU VOT ILLEGALLY, YOU WILL GO TO JAIL.”
Mike Benz, executive director of Internet Freedom Foundationposted last month on X about the various forms of fraud that may be taking place this election cycle, including UOCAVA voting.
“[N]not enough to have fraud from bulk mailed ballots, not enough fraud from unsecured electronic voting machines, not enough fraud from lack of voter ID, not enough fraud from illegal illegal voters here, now they have up to 1.6 million mysterious ballots flooded from abroad W,” Benz wrote.
Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project and former Kansas attorney general, said Only News on Friday that while “every American abroad should have the opportunity and right to vote,” the current system works “not that way.”
In some states in 2020, rules were changed illegally and election workers were told to “consider all signatures valid” and “not to consider” whether signatures on absentee ballots matched voter signatures on file, Kline added.
He added that in previous elections, Democratic election officials in inner cities in swing states “willfully violated the law” when it came to ensuring ballots were properly managed after voters returned them.
In 2020, Kline and others “tried to prevent some of this” by going to court before the election, but “the courts found we didn’t have standing,” saying the “damage hasn’t happened yet” and “come back,” he said . However, “once the damage has occurred,” “there is no cure,” Kline explained.
Kline noted that in 2020, Michigan conducted voter registration online, requiring only a Social Security number and driver’s license number. However, these numbers can be purchased on the obscure web, he said. “Online registration systems” have “a huge security flaw,” Kline said. Concerns about UOCAVA’s security vulnerabilities have led to a lawsuit in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Five Republican congressmen filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Secretary of State over allegedly lax requirements for military and overseas voters.
Pennsylvania GOP Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn “GT” Thompson, Lloyd Smucker and Mike Kelly filed a lawsuit IN on Monday in federal court v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Secretary Al Schmidt and Deputy Elections Secretary Jonathan Marks in re directive regarding the verification of the eligibility of military and foreign voters.
Pennsylvania Department of State directive states that “that Pennsylvania and federal law clearly provide that voter registrations may not be rejected solely on the basis of a mismatch between the applicant’s identification numbers on his application and the comparison numbers in the database.” The lawsuit alleged that the directive violates both UOCAVA and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).
“The Commonwealth’s practice is an illegally structured election process that makes Pennsylvania’s elections vulnerable to ineligible votes from individuals or entities who may purport to be UOCAVA eligible, register to vote without verifying identity or eligibility, but receive your ballot by email and then cast your ballot without providing your identity at any stage of the process,” – the lawsuit argues.
Congressmen are asking the court to order the secretary to direct county election officials to verify the identity and eligibility of applicants for UOCAVA ballots. The lawmakers are also demanding this that a judge ordered county election officials to “separate UOCAVA ballots returned for the 2024 election until the applicant’s identity and eligibility can be verified as required by HAVA and state law.” The hearing date is set for Friday, October 18, 2024.
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Natalia Mittelstadt is a reporter for Just the News.
