Could non-citizen voters (Somalis?) swing close races? Yes, says WaPo
Non-citizen Somali voters may have made the difference for funny-man Al Franken in 2008.
On Thursday we reported that some of Obama’s illegal alien “Dreamers” are voting.
And, I should mention that I’ve been asked several time recently if I thought illegal aliens or more importantly legal immigrants, like refugees, are voting before they have even gained citizenship and I’ve said: Of course they are! They simply check ‘yes’ to the citizenship question when they get a drivers license and they are good to go because no one ever cross-checks.
This Washington Post story (can we believe our eyes that this is in the WaPo?) confirms what we have only surmised (hat tip: Paul). You can read the whole thing yourself but the section that interested me most was the one on the Minnesota Al Franken victory which we reported on extensively in 2008 (here is one of several posts we wrote at the time) may well have been decided with the help of Somali illegal voters.
From the Washington Post (although they don’t use the ‘S’ word!):
Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin.
Yup!
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