Don’t Let Election Lies Threaten Your Voting Rights
By Hannah Liu, with collaboration from Zaria Guignard and Jenny Liu
During this election cycle, stay informed and don’t fall prey to lies designed to undermine our faith in elections. Heightened political tensions and an abundance of sensationalist, attention-grabbing news headlines have created an environment for falsehoods to thrive. One of these lies is the myth of widespread noncitizen voting in federal elections, a narrative weaponized by some bad-faith actors to undermine our confidence in democracy and demonize immigrants and communities of color.
No evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in national elections has ever been produced. Investigations led by various parties over the last decade — including those who claim that this is a serious issue — have failed to dig up more than a handful of instances where noncitizens have voted nationally. Nevertheless, election deniers have recently capitalized on hysteria around the border to push the myth that large groups of noncitizens are aiming to cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election. These lies have led to eight states moving to vote on ballot measures to ban noncitizen voting, even though it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in those states.
Proponents of this dangerous and xenophobic myth of noncitizen voting want to undermine access to the ballot box and increase suspicion of immigrants and communities of color. Some so-called “election integrity activists” have even advocated for scanning voter rolls for “ethnic” sounding names. This conspiracy theory also drives wedges between communities of color, encouraging Asian Americans — many of whom are immigrants themselves — to “other” or separate themselves from newer arrivals who are primarily Latinx and Black. Additionally, preemptive declarations of fraud allow politicians to scapegoat immigrants and blame “widespread noncitizen voting” if they do not win. They also provide an excuse for the adoption of practices that make voting overly cumbersome and undermine people’s voting rights, such as requiring proof of citizenship — which can be onerous and expensive — and conducting mass voter purges based on outdated and incomplete database matching.
As a result of this anti-immigrant disinformation campaign, states have been increasingly conducting voter roll purges, causing thousands of eligible voters to have their registrations canceled with little notice ahead of the election. Advancing Justice | AAJC successfully challenged purging voters within 90 days of an election in Arizona and is waiting for a decision from the Ninth Circuit. If we win again, we fully expect an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Undeterred, however, earlier this year the governor of Virginia — a state that has about 765,000 people who identify as Asian (alone or in combination with other races) — ordered state and local election officials to remove individuals from the state voter registration list if DMV records didn’t indicate U.S. citizenship for these individuals. But this purge also captured U.S. citizens who naturalized after applying for their driver’s license. Given that nearly 43 percent of naturalized citizens in Virginia are Asian, this is clearly an issue that directly affects the Asian American community. Federal courts placed a brief stay on the purge, but with less than a week until election day, the Supreme Court has now allowed the state to move forward.
The noncitizen voting myth has the potential to further subject voters who need language assistance, as well as those perceived to be noncitizens, to racist harassment at the polls. The increased racial profiling and suspicion of people of color comes on top of our community fighting stereotypes that cast us as “perpetual foreigners,” creating a chilling effect and unwelcoming atmosphere at the polls.
To protect our democracy, we need to redouble efforts to educate our communities and dispel divisive disinformation this election cycle. Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC has put together a toolkit that contains various case studies — including one on conspiracy theories related to noncitizens voting in federal elections, as well as other examples. The toolkit also contains frameworks for how to best understand and address election-related falsehoods targeting Asian Americans. Please contact community@advancingjustice-aajc.org for more information on how to access the toolkit.
In addition, we have a number of translated voting resources that may be helpful to you this election (Available in: Arabic, Bangla, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Khmer, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, and Vietnamese):
- Are you ready to vote?
- Voter-readiness checklist
- Ballot-tracking tips
- Facts about Section 203 — Jurisdictions with sizable minority-language electorates must provide voting materials in the relevant languages. You can find more information about what Asian American languages are covered and in what jurisdictions here.
- Facts about Section 208 — Every voter has the right to bring someone into the voting booth to assist them.
If a voter has any questions about their registration or the process, they can call the 888-API-Vote (1–888–274–8683) hotline, where voters can get accurate information about elections, receive assistance, and more, in English, Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
Hannah Liu is the Manager of Immigration Advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC.
Jenny Liu is the Senior Manager of Mis/Disinformation Policy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC.
Zaria Guignard is the Manager of the Census and Civic Engagement Program at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC.
