By Graham Perdue, Freedom Press
A parade of Democratic witnesses showed their true colors on Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary hearing on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. None were willing to take a stand and declare that only U.S. citizens should vote in federal elections.
Sen.
Mike Lee (R-UT) asked a straightforward and benign question of each of the
witnesses. He implored them to give a basic “yes” or “no” response to questions
over people who are not U.S. citizens voting.
Each
was asked, “Do you believe that only citizens of the United States should be
able to vote in federal elections?”
Simple
enough, especially considering that the witnesses were addressing a hearing on
voting rights. But one by one, each Democrat dodged the query.
President
of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project Lydia Camarillo
responded, “That’s a decision of the state law but I want to emphasize…” Lee
interrupted her attempt to avoid answering and asked, “It’s a decision of state
law as to who should vote in federal elections?”
Obviously,
as she well knew, it is not. But Camarillo ultimately answered that she lacked
a position on that question.
Sophia
Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said, “Federal law
prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections and our focus is on
enabling all eligible voters to be able to vote and cast their ballot.”
Again,
a slippery answer to a direct question.
There
were two Republican witnesses before the panel. The Public Interest Legal
Foundation’s Maureen Riordan and the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky
asserted that non-citizens should not be permitted to vote in federal
elections.
The GOP is vigorously attempting to secure the election process to preserve its integrity and voter confidence. It was December when Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) introduced the Citizen Ballot Protection Act as a companion bill to a House proposal.
It
would establish protocols to ensure that only U.S. citizens are permitted to
vote in federal elections.
But
as was clearly displayed in Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Hearing, Democrats were
solidly opposed to building a wall around the nation’s electoral system.
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