Question:
In many states, application for
a state ID (for someone who does
not drive) is done on a computer.
Some applicants have inadvertantly
answered yes to the question of
whether they want to register to
vote, not really knowing what it
meant. I heard from an immigration
lawyer that anyone who did this
should hold off applying for citizenship
because there is a case on appeal
where deportation proceedings were
initiated when a permanent resident
honestly answered that they had
unintentionally applied for voter
registration while completing the
INS form N-400. The lawyer says
the statute doesn't require intent
to register. He says if he is faced
with this problem with one of his
own clients, he will argue that
the computerized ID applications
should first ask if you are a citizen,
and not ask the voter question if
you are not.
Answer:
The issue is not in the registration
but in actually having voted. If
you inadvertently registered to
vote, call the election board immediately
and have your name taken off the
register. It is that easy. These
case are quite fact specific and
no general answer can be given.
There is only ONE published case
on the issues: McDonald v. Gonzales
which came out on March 2, 2005
from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The extremely able attoreny representing
Mrs. McDonald had a hell of time
writing the briefs because there
was no authority on the issues.
Mrs. McDonald won her case on very
narrow grounds but the 9th Circuit
issued a judicial scream of the
nature of an inquiry of doesn't
DHS have better things to do.
Again, there
is no general answer that can be
made. Certified Specialist Immigration
& Nat. Law Cal. Bar Board of Legal
Specialization I concur with the
lawyer on this one. A few years
ago, when the rule about "registering
to vote makes you deportable" was
first introduced, there was a case
of a young woman who registered
to vote in high school. She had
reason to believe that she was a
US citizen (I don't know why, but
when this case went to trial, both
sides agreed to the fact that she
actually had no reason to even suspect
she might not be a citizen). Well,
later it turned out that she actually
wasn't a citizen.
Again, I don't
know why. She ended up in deportation
proceedings. I seem to remember
that in the end, a private bill
was passed for her benefit, making
her a GC holder again. But it took
an act of Congress, or something
of that magnitude, to fix the problem.
I believe after this case hit the
press, the law was slightly weakened,
and now allows for people who have
reason to believe that they are
US citizens. But your case probably
wouldn't fall under that category.
Personally, I have some doubts about
the lawyer's line of reasoning.
If this was a paper form, the question
about citizenship and voting are
independent. The mere fact that
the form has been translated into
electronic format shouldn't impose
additional requirements on the quality
of the questions. I can think of
two alternative lines of reasoning:
1) He could
argue that the question should have
had an explicit note: "Do you register
to vote? WARNING: you must be a
US citizen to answer yes here. Answering
yes for a non-citizen can carry
severe consequences."
2) It actually
isn't automatically illegal to register
to vote. Some municipalities do
allow aliens to vote for certain
local elections (usually, school
board elections). You had no way
to know whether or not this applied
in your municipality, nor any way
to specify such a restricted voting
registration on the electronic form.
One could
then argue that punishing you for
registering to vote (as opposed
to actually voting) would deprive
you of a right that you may have
been legally entitled to.
