U. Michigan Student From China Votes in Presidential Election and His Ballot Won’t be Discounted
“We’re grateful for the swift action of the clerk in this case, who took the appropriate steps and referred the case to law enforcement”
This story is insane. The student has been charged with two crimes as a result.
The Detroit News reports:
Chinese student to face criminal charges for voting in Michigan. Ballot will apparently count
A University of Michigan student who is from China and not a U.S. citizen allegedly voted Sunday in Ann Arbor and is being charged with two crimes, six days before a pivotal presidential election.
The filing of the charges was revealed Wednesday in a statement from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office and the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s office. The press release didn’t identify the student, describing him only as “a non-U.S. citizen.”
The 19-year-old from China was legally present in the United States but not a citizen, which meant he couldn’t legally cast a ballot, according to information from the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. He registered to vote on Sunday using his UM student identification and other documentation establishing residency in Ann Arbor, signed a document identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and his ballot was entered into a tabulator, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
The ballot was cast at an early voting site at the University of Michigan Museum of Art on State Street, according to the Ann Arbor city administrator.
Later, the UM student voter contacted the local clerk’s office, asking if he could somehow get his ballot back, according to Benson’s office.
The student’s ballot is expected to count in the upcoming election — although it was illegally cast — because there is no way for election officials to retrieve it once it’s been put through a tabulator, according to two sources familiar with Michigan election laws. The setup is meant to prevent ballots from being tracked back to an individual voter.
“We’re grateful for the swift action of the clerk in this case, who took the appropriate steps and referred the case to law enforcement,” said a joint statement from the offices of Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit. “We are also grateful to law enforcement for swiftly and thoroughly investigating this case.
“Anyone who attempts to vote illegally faces significant consequences, including but not limited to arrest and prosecution.”
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Comments
He registered to vote on Sunday using his UM student identification
IOW, he knew what he was doing, and was doing it deliberately and he should hang for it. (At least metaphorically.)
no way for election officials to retrieve it once it’s been put through a tabulator
Hey, maybe that’s a d*** good reason to NOT COUNT ANY VOTES EXCEPT ON ELECTION DAY!
(And it should invalidate that entire precinct’s votes. All of them. Until they re-vote – no commies allowed this time.
Oh…
And, while he was swiftly ARRESTED, he has not yet been tried, nor had his visa revoked and kicked out of the country.
This could be another “criminal justice reform” victory for the left if we don’t ensure he stays in jail and is prosecuted and sentenced to the maximum sentence and his visa revoked.
How does that help? Most people vote on election day, so most illegal voting will also take place then. Once a vote is cast, how can you identify it in order not to count it?
Clearly nothing to worry about here. Isn’t the mantra “Every vote, legal or otherwise, should be counted”? Since this incident was identified because the individual made the mistake of confessing, we can be sure that no other non-citizens will actually vote. The Ann Arbor prosecutor will undoubtedly pursue this to the full extent of the law. The system works!!!
“Later, the UM student voter contacted the local clerk’s office, asking if he could somehow get his ballot back, according to Benson’s office.”
This raises several questions in my mind:
Why did the student contact the local clerk’s office to try to get the ballot back?
Is it possible this person, perhaps not a fluent English speaker, was misled by someone into casting an illegal vote? That this student later realized he was duped and tried to correct the error?
Is this a message to others? “If you’ve been duped into casting an illegal vote, don’t try to correct it or bring attention to it or you will be arrested”?
The big takeaway is: this wasn’t caught when he cast his vote. This wasn’t caught through any type of audit process or voter verification process.
The fact that this Chinese national cast an illegal vote was ONLY identified when the voter himself brought the Clerk’s attention to it.
Which raises the additional question: how many more non citizens have voted that haven’t outed themselves? How many illegal votes have already been cast and counted in Michigan?
More than a few I’d bet.
The “fix” is well underway.
Best explanation of why the guy asked for his ballot back that I’ve seen yet. That had “bait” written all over it.
“Anyone who attempts to vote illegally faces significant consequences, including but not limited to arrest and prosecution.”
But that’s what illegal immigration laws also say, and Kamala’s people told me I could ignore those, too.
“‘Through a series of actions, the student was apparently able to register, receive a ballot and cast a vote,; Dohoney wrote in an email Monday. ‘Based upon the scenario that we’re hearing this morning, the student was fully aware of what he was doing, and that it was not legal.’
And other potential scenario. This student wasn’t just here as a student, he had a “green card” which means he’s a permanent resident alien. Perhaps a refugee from Communist China? Perhaps one of the many, many legal immigrants who loves the country that took them in and gave them freedom when their own oppressed them?
So, if he was “fully aware of what he was doing and that it was illegal” why would he later try to retract his illegal vote?
Seems to me it’s possible he voted illegally specifically to demonstrate how easy it is and that he “tried to get his ballot back” because he didn’t really WANT to vote illegally, but he was trying to prove a point.
How convenient is it that they’re not releasing the identify of this mystery illegal voter? That way we can’t research his background or find out if he’s a leftist who was legitimately trying to vote illegally, or perhaps a budding right-wing journalist with the goal of exposing this glaring weakness in Michigan’s process?
And which scenario is more likely for the Democrat election officials, leftist City Manager and left wing prosecutors to go after? A leftist legitimately voting illegally? Or a right winger trying to expose them?
Not saying any of my theories are correct, I’m just saying the whole “he called the clerk’s office to try to get the ballot back” thing doesn’t make a bit of sense if this guy was a legitimate leftist trying to vote illegally.
Hopefully, a journalist would have already understood that once his “anonymous” vote went through the gears there would be no chance of recalling it. But then I think of Mika and Joy, and I’m no longer sure.
Of course his ballot will be counted. How else could it be? How do any of you think it’s supposed to work, when someone is caught having voted illegally? Do any of you understand the concept of a secret ballot? Once a vote has been cast it can’t be identified, so how could you withdraw it and not count it?
The only valid complaint I can see here is that he asked to get his ballot back before Election Day… and if the ballot hadn’t been counted early, and instead had sat waiting for Election Day (like we all used to do) it could have been yanked before being counted.
Even when absentee ballots weren’t counted before the election, they were still usually processed on receipt, and then separated from their outside envelopes. That has to be done in order to mark the voter off as having voted, and thus can’t vote again. And once that’s done you can’t pull it out.
But a bigger point is that the reason early and absentee ballots are now counted early is because people on our side complained that counting them after the election make the results take too long. “Why couldn’t they have been counted earlier?”, people right here at LI asked. “How can it take so long to get a result?” So they started counting them as they were received, and now you’re complaining about that.
This just goes to show that we need better voter id laws. I know in Texas you have to show your state drivers license or id. On the back is a bar code and they scan that and it will look you up in the voter rolls. It will also tell them if you are not eligible to vote because your resident status, ie, citizen, legal resident, US national, legal asylum seeker is coded into that bar code. Without that id you do a provisional ballot and they only count it after verifying you are eligible to vote.