California and the Laws that Divide

 

Part 10 - Foreign Influence


In any election for federal office, the U.S. Constitution and U.S. federal law grant the right to vote only to U.S. citizens (natural born and naturalized).

 

In any election for State office, the California Constitution gives the right to vote only to U.S. citizens who are residents of the state of California.

 

However, laws on paper are useless

if there is no will or method to enforce them.

 

  • No proof of citizenship is required to register to vote in California.

 

  • The California Secretary of State, who is ultimately responsible for verifying voter eligibility, lacks the will and resources to reliably carry out that verification.

 

  • No proof of citizenship is required to cast a vote in California.

 

The influx of so many undocumented individuals surging across our national borders in the last three and a half years has rightfully heightened Americans’ awareness of the potential for foreign interference in our elections.

 

The potential for foreign influence is nothing new in California.

 

In 2013, California passed AB 817, which authorized non-citizens to serve as poll workers. This unthinkable action blurred the line between citizen and non-citizen privileges and opened the road to uncontrolled foreign influence in California elections.

 

EIPCa [actually Election Integrity Project (EIP) at the time (not to be confused with Election Integrity Partnership)] fought that bill with a mighty effort. EIP believed, and still believes, that no foreign-born individuals should have hands-on involvement in California’s election process until they have formally and officially:

 

  • Relinquished allegiance to their native country,

 

  • Relinquished allegiance to their foreign leaders,

 

  • Sworn sole allegiance to the United States of America.

 

In other words, until foreign individuals have become naturalized citizens and official members of the American family, it is a potential existential threat to the state and country for them to participate by voting or processing voters or ballots in any way.

 

EIP’s opposition effort included the participation of 6,000 citizens of California and other states who signed petitions asking Governor Jerry Brown to withhold his signature on AB 817.

 

On a date well before the deadline for the governor’s signature, EIP held a rally at the capitol to formally present the governor with the signed petitions.

 

EIP alerted the governor to our intentions and respectfully asked him to refrain from signing the bill until we could make our delivery.

 

To prove we actually had the signatures, EIP’s CEO spent untold hours and her own money to fax every one of the signed petitions to the governor’s office ahead of time.  The rally was well attended and was a great success for citizen self-governance.

 

However, in an act of complete defiance and disrespect for a huge number of constituents, the governor signed AB 817 into law the day before the rally.

 

Aside from the gravity of EIP’s philosophical objections, AB 817 looks cautious and restrictive--on paper.

 

The non-citizen poll worker has to be

 

  • lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the U.S.

 

  • otherwise, eligible to register to vote except for lack of U.S. citizenship.

 

  • fluent and literate in English, as required of every poll worker.

 

  • restricted from being the Lead Official at the polls

 

  • restricted from being used to tally votes.

 

But like so many California laws,

there is no mechanism for enforcement.

 

No one is allowed to ask or question the citizenship of a worker beyond an on-your-honor question on the application, so the members and Lead Official of a Precinct Board have no way of knowing who may or may not be assigned to certain duties. Moreover, they are not allowed to ask.

 

There is never any research done to validate applicants’ written assertions that they meet the qualifications.

 

For that matter, no official check is ever done regarding the English fluency requirement, and applicants may not qualify on that basis whether they are citizens or not.

 

EIPCa Observers often encounter poll workers

unable to assist English-speaking voters.

 

To our knowledge, no other country in the world allows non-citizens to vote or hold office, or accommodates hundreds of languages in their governmental processes.

 

To do so surrenders national sovereignty.

 

Some countries do not even have a naturalization process, nor accept the idea of dual citizenship. In those countries, citizens are citizens by birth only. In order to become a naturalized citizen in a different country, they must renounce citizenship in their birth country.

 

While this may seem extreme and xenophobic, the laudable and necessary goal is a stable and unified culture that preserves its ideals, identity, language and world view.

 

America was once described as a “melting pot” because people who immigrated to America arrived with the intention of becoming Americans. Their diverse cultures merged together with the core principles and ideals of America as glue that holds us together as ONE people united as ONE nation.

 

However, the introduction of foreign individuals can become a slippery slope eliminating the core thread of American culture if it happens too rapidly and assimilation does not occur. This is why the American immigration and naturalization process is slow, lengthy and cautious, at least until recently.

 

Any country without a common world view and governmental philosophy among its residents will soon cease to be a country with an identity.

 

THEREFORE, citizenship must have a meaning.

The sole and unabridged right to vote must be reserved only for citizens.

 

Today more than ever before, Americans are asking how to stop the recent tidal wave of illegal immigrants from becoming a tsunami of voters who may forever change the identity of this country.

 

As mentioned in EIPCa’s recent Alert, the United Sovereign Americans strategy for voter roll protection is a highly promising resolution to that issue.

 

Until EIPCa’s federal lawsuit pulls the rug out from under 25 years of unconstitutional election laws foisted upon the citizens of California, we must unite to demand enforcement of the laws and regulations that prevent foreign involvement and influence in our governmental processes.

 

All who are able are encouraged to use EIPCa’s Citizen Observer materials to prepare to participate in legal, meaningful citizen oversight of the election process to preserve every citizen’s right to self-govern.

 

You can find these easy-to-understand materials laid out

in these boxes on our website:

 

 https://www.eip-ca.com/articles/calif_laws_divide.html

 

https://www.eip-ca.com/articles/vote_safe_series.html

https://www.eip-ca.com/citizen_obs.html

  https://www.eip-ca.com/articles/calif_laws_divide.html

 


And please continue to support EIPCa as the lawsuit progresses.

 

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California and the Laws that Divide Part 10 - Foreign Influence    
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