POINT ROBERTS, Wash. — The Washington Secretary of State pushed back against the federal government’s claims that more than 400 non-US citizens may have voted in state elections this year.
However, one immigration attorney told KIRO 7 that he is being contacted by several non-citizens who said they unknowingly registered to vote when applying for a Washington driver’s license.
In Washington state, you can still get a standard driver’s license if you don’t have a Social Security number or if you aren’t a citizen. At the Department of Licensing, you have to sign a declaration saying that you don’t have a Social Security number and provide alternative proof of identity and residency.
While applying for a driver’s license, people can also choose whether to register to vote or become an organ donor.
Immigration Attorney Len Saunders told KIRO 7 that a woman may have accidentally registered to vote while applying for a license.
“This is an absolute worst-case scenario,” said Saunders about 61-year-old Paige Adamson.
Adamson, a Canadian citizen with a green card, was recently stopped at the border while heading back to her home in Point Roberts, Washington.
The area is part of Whatcom County, but if you’re traveling by land, you must drive across into Canada to get there.
“She was asked [by border patrol] whether she had either registered to vote or voted in past US elections,” Saunders said.
As a Canadian citizen, Adamson is not able to vote.
Saunders believes she was unwittingly registered to vote when she got her Washington State driver’s license.
In the past, he says this would have been resolved by having her unregister.
Instead, Adamson was scheduled for a deportation hearing.
Saunders says he’s hearing of this happening a lot during this election season.
“For me, you have to remember, I’m a small-town solo practitioner. I’m not a big law firm for me to see dozens of cases over the last month. You know, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these cases right now where people have registered to vote. It’s the honor system,” he said.
Adamson’s case took a tragic turn when she fractured her leg. She refused to cross the border to see her doctor – fearing immigration detention - and died from internal bleeding.
KIRO 7 spoke with her son, Dylan, by phone as he drove to get her death certificate.
“I don’t think she’s got a speeding ticket, and she gets threatened at the border for deportation just because of a technicality?” he said.
Secretary of State Steve Hobbs insists fraud is rare.
“We look at the voter rolls for all kinds of discrepancies and we removed – I think we removed - 76,000 individuals from the voter rolls.”
But when KIRO 7’s Heather Bosch pressed him specifically about whether they remove non-citizens, Hobbs said, “Well, we don’t have a system that can identify whether someone is an actual or non-citizen.”
Hobbs points out that even if someone is mistakenly registered to vote, when you cast your ballot, you sign the back of the envelope affirming that you are a US citizen. It’s illegal to vote if you’re not.
When asked what he would tell Adamson about his mother’s experience, Hobbs replied, “What I’d tell him is maybe the federal government should stop harassing people.”