Virgil Wiebe, professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, recently published an op-ed in the Star Tribune on the topic of noncitizen voting, following research on the issue conducted earlier this year.
From the article:
In fact, a review of every prosecution related to noncitizen voting and noncitizen voter registration in the state of Minnesota since 2015 – during which time there were more than 13.4 million votes cast – turned up a grand total of three convictions. Put simply, Minnesota does not have a noncitizen voting problem.
But won’t the new automatic voter registration law (AVR) lead to immigrants being registered to vote? No. Under AVR, Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS) must have documented proof of U.S. citizenship before it forwards driver’s license and ID card applicant information to the secretary of state for voter registration.
Under the old system, driver’s license and ID card applicants had to check a box claiming they were U.S. citizens to register to vote. They could do so without providing U.S. citizenship evidence. In rare cases, this led to wrongful voter registration, including instances in which data was entered incorrectly by state employees. AVR will likely eliminate these already rare occurrences.
