Q&A – Trump Polls & Illegal Votes
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Today’s topic was submitted via talkback. A listener suggested that polls aren’t accounting for the potential for illegal immigrants voting this year.
Bottom Line: There are two compelling and provocative concepts in play with today’s Q&A. The first is the omnipresent concern about record illegal immigration into the United States during the Biden Administration leading to potentially rampant voter fraud by illegal immigrants this November. The other is the context with which Trump is showing in the polls. I want to address them both individually because I think it’s important to do so. I want to start with a premise and a question because I think it will set the tone for what comes next with a conversation about the fear of voter fraud in November. How many criminal convictions for voter fraud in Florida have there been over the prior four years? How many have involved illegal immigrants voting?
The answers to those two questions I believe are foundationally important to help establish a premise for concerns over voter fraud. The answer is 24 criminal convictions with two other cases that currently point towards convictions. Of those 26 individuals how many were illegal immigrants? 2. Now, does this mean that over the past two general election cycles, and two local election cycles, that only 26 people have committed voter fraud in Florida? Probably not. It's possible others didn’t get caught. Is it possible that more than two illegal immigrants have voted within the past four years? I’d say it’s not only possible but likely – again for the same reason. But how does that wash generally with your perspective? And I think this is important for one foundational reason. Florida is the country’s best-case study for this type of thing.
Florida’s the third most populous state with the third largest estimated illegal immigration population in the country. Also, at least until after the 2022 election cycle, the largest swing state in the country. This means in terms of sheer numbers and thus potential opportunity, along with the perceived motivation to do so, Florida checks a lot of boxes. But that’s not all, in recent years Florida has also created a state agency dedicated to uncovering and discovering election crimes and is led by a state administration that is motivated to identify and to prosecute them. What this means is that while it is likely some amount of fraud may have slipped under the radar, anything pervasive likely wouldn’t. This is not to downplay the fraud that has occurred, that’s in part due to the 26 individuals not resulting in only 26 fraudulent votes being cast. While some voter fraud is one person casting one illegal vote, often schemes involving many votes per perpetrator are the result. And in fact, in 2020 a local election in central Florida was overturned due to voter fraud having been discovered. And that leads to my next point.
A nationwide study of the 2016 election was done to attempt to determine if illegal immigrants had voted in the presidential election. Nationally, taking a sample of 23.5 million votes reviewed (from all states) it was discovered that 30 votes were potentially cast by noncitizens. That’s a total that projects to be 127 for the entire election.
In my experience I’ve found that it’s most often the case that those on the left underestimate voter fraud by often saying it’s either non or near non-existent, which isn’t true, while often many on the right suggest it’s far more prevalent than is ever evidenced to be. Those who know my history on this issue know that I’ve been personally involved in identifying and helping to stop voter fraud in Broward and Palm Beach Counties historically. I take this extremely seriously. And this takes me to the next point about something referenced. That if illegal immigrants vote but don’t realize they’re not doing anything wrong the vote counts and there’s no consequence (or at least that’s what I inferred from the comment). I’m not sure where that comes from but that doesn’t exist. It is unlawful for non-US citizens to vote in any federal election.
The Illegal Immigration reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act explicitly bans this. One must be a legal U.S. Citizen of at least 18 years of age in order to vote in any federal election. The penalty for violations includes a fine, revocation of any status within the US one may have, federal prison time and deportation. Additionally, every state in the country has state penalties as well. The stakes associated with the risk of getting caught is much higher for non-citizens committing voter fraud than it is even for citizens committing voter fraud. This is likely why have been very few cases of voter fraud involving noncitizens up to now.
Where I think there may be some confusion from is a federal court ruling in March which ruled that non-citizens may participate with voter registration groups to register legal voters – but they themselves may not register to vote. Incidentally, that ruling was by Obama appointed Judge Mark Walker who’s made a habit out of overturning Florida laws that are challenged before him only to have his decisions overturned on appeal. That particular ruling may be the next. Now, given everything I’ve said does this mean that there won’t be efforts to have illegal immigrants vote this November? Nope. I’m sure there will be. We should always be diligent and take nothing for granted – especially in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where the state governments may not be as inclined to pursue potential voter fraud cases as Florida is. This is where the Republican Party at the grass roots level must be diligent. This is also where concerned citizens need to get involved in becoming poll workers and observers.
The threat is a real one to be taken seriously. With that said, the threat is probably similar to what we’ve seen generally. Greater than the left that says and probably less severe than the worst fears on the right. It’s still unlikely that many who’ve managed to successfully make their way into this country illegally will want to put that at risk by making themselves both visible and vulnerable by attempting to vote in November. As for the polls...
They should all be taken for what they are, which is a potential temperature check at a moment in time as opposed to a precise indication of what is. With that said what’s most compelling to me about the polls currently is what we’ve known about them historically. Donald Trump is showing small but consistent leads nationally and within most swing states. What’s a bit more compelling about that to me is that we’ve known they’ve severely under sampled Trump previously. In 2016, Clinton was shown with a 3.2% advantage nationally and she won the popular vote by 2.1%. So, Trump’s support was undercounted by 1.1% (which was the difference in so many close states that Trump won). In 2020 it was even worse with Biden showing an advantage of 7.2% nationally while he won the popular vote by 4.5%. Trump’s support was under sampled by 2.7% which is why the election proved to be closer than most national pundits believed it would be. Trump’s performing about 5% better in the polls this year than he did in 2016 and about 8 points better than he did in 2020. That’s interesting – especially given the history. Most cynically, it’s also a swing that’s big enough to potentially account for an increase in voter fraud if you do believe it’ll successfully happen.