Not a Citizen? Prove It!
- 7 hours ago
- 5 min read
Resistance is futile. You will be registered to vote!
By Kristine Christlieb, MFEI News & Commentary Editor
April 28, 2025
Michigan Fair Elections Institute’s Founder Patrice Johnson is waving a red flag, warning about a new state law governing automatic voter registration coming into effect on June 30.
House Bill No. 4983, introduced by 22 Michigan Democrats and signed by Governor Whitmer on November 20, 2023, further expands automatic voter registration in Michigan, potentially opening the door for even more non-citizen voting.
Johnson explains the danger . . . then the irony.
“We already know Michigan election officials are not verifying citizenship. Under the current system, non-citizens already are on our voter rolls and are voting. Secretary Benson recently admitted that reality earlier this month. Under House Bill No. 4983, not only will people who apply for driver’s licenses be automatically registered to vote, but also interactions with other state agencies may trigger automatic voter registration. So if you apply for Medicaid, you also, automatically, may be registered to vote.”
Section 493b of HB No. 4983 gives the Secretary of State the authority to designate other state agencies as “an automatic voter registration agency,” if, in the regular course of doing business, the agency collects sufficient data to confirm an individual’s voter eligibility.
The bill also specifies that nothing in Section 493a of the bill “should be construed to … require documentary proof of United States citizenship.” [Emphasis added.]
“Under this law, it will be possible for Michigan’s Secretary of State to designate a whole host of state service offices as ‘automatic voter registration’ agencies,' and none of them will require proof of citizenship to register to vote.”
Johnson goes on to explain the irony of HB No. 4983. “To be automatically registered, no proof of citizenship is required. But, according to this law, if you want to opt out of being automatically registered, an individual must provide ‘documentation demonstrating that the individual is not a United States citizen.’ So no proof of citizenship is required to be automatically registered; but if you don’t want to be automatically registered, you have to provide proof you are NOT a citizen. Who is going to do that?”
Johnson went on to point out, “One of the arguments against proof of citizenship is that it imposes an undue burden on poor individuals who may not have the required paperwork. However, non-citizens who want to opt out of the automatic voter registration must bear that burden.”
Analysts of the state’s election data are eager to see how HB No. 4983 will be implemented because it required additional data points on the Qualified Voter File (QVF). “The state QVF has been criticized as inaccurate on a number of fronts. It will be interesting to see if Democrat officials are able to keep up with the requirements of their own Democrat-passed laws,” said Tim Vetter, co-founder of Data Evaluation Election Processes, a group of data analysts who have been examining the QVF systematically since 2021.
Among its other provisions, HB No. 4983 will add voter registration coordination with the Department of Correction, making Michigan the first state in the nation to automatically register incarcerated people to vote upon their release.
According to The Detroit News, “The vast majority of Michigan voters register through their driver's license or a state ID, which were the focus of the new review. However, Michigan voters also have the option of showing a driver's license from another state, another government-issued ID, a U.S. passport, a military ID, a tribal ID or a student ID.” [Emphasis added.]
That is how Haoxiang Gao, a Chinese national, was registered to vote and then voted in the 2024 Presidential election — by using his University of Michigan student ID. It isn’t possible to remove Gao’s or any noncitizen’s ballot from the official vote count. Grok-assisted research explains, “once a ballot is cast and processed, it is typically commingled with other ballots, making it impossible to identify and remove a specific vote without violating ballot secrecy or risking errors in the count.” So Gao’s vote remains part of the official vote count record to this day.
On Thursday, Gao failed to appear for a probable cause hearing in Ann Arbor. Votebeat Michigan reports, “The hearing had been delayed repeatedly over the past several months.”
In a joint statement with Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote: “Let this be clear: Voting records are public — any noncitizen who attempts to vote fraudulently in Michigan will be exposing themselves to great risk and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
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