[Voterescue] Lon Burnam quoted in news story

Tue Nov 27 23:53:37 CST 2007

In a report by CBS11 News in Fort Worth last night on the allegations of 
non-citizens voting, Representative Lon Burnam was quoted as saying:

/[State] Representative Burnam said he believes any gains achieved by 
citizen verification would be outweighed by the thousands of U.S. voters 
who would be disenfranchised. /*/To him, the integrity of new electronic 
voting machines is a bigger issue.

/**Go, Lon!! * In the legislative session here in Texas this past 
spring, Lon stepped up and sponsored the /Hand-Counted Paper Ballot Bill 
/[at our request], so we are very happy to see that he is continuing to 
talk about the problems of the voting machines with the press.

To send Lon a thank you for his vigilance, go to: 
_http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/email.php?dist=90&rep=lon.burnam_.

Karen

http://cbs11tv.com/politics/American.vote.electoral.2.596248.html

    Report: Some Non-Citizens Voting In U.S. Elections

Reporting
Chris Salcedo <http://cbs11tv.com/bios/Chris.Salcedo.KTVT.9.480134.html>
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) --
Nov 26, 2007 8:37 pm US/Centra

Every American's vote counts. It's a basic pillar of our electoral system.

But a CBS 11 investigation discovered that election officials can't 
guarantee that only American citizens vote in elections.

After the review of data from Tarrant and Dallas Counties, it appeared, 
at least on the surface, that some non-citizens were participating in 
U.S. elections.

Since 1976, 1,900 people have been removed from the voter rolls because 
of their citizenship status in Dallas County. Of those, 221 had voter 
histories.

Tarrant County election data from 2004 and 2005 shows 43 people have 
been removed from the voter rolls, but none had voter histories.

It appeared there was a problem. Officials admit some illegal immigrants 
could be seeking to participate in U.S. elections.

But, they explained, there are other explanations.

Tarrant County elections official Steve Rayborn said some legal citizens 
claim they are not citizens to get out of jury duty.

There are other scenarios that explain the data. Non-citizens on student 
or work visas might fill out registration forms by mistake.

Rayburn said that if there are non-citizens voting, he feels there are 
very few.

Dallas County elections official Bruce Sherbet said his elections are as 
clean as they can be. They follow the law when checking voter's 
qualifications.

He said he has tools at his disposal to check for felony convictions and 
someone's age. He even has tools to determine if a voter has been deemed 
mentally incompetent by a court of law.

However, there is no way to know if everyone who casts a ballot is a 
legal citizen. Under the law, there is no government check for 
citizenship eligibility.

The only way to determine someone's citizenship is to see which box they 
checked on their voter registration card.

In the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers tackled the issue.

Representative Phil King 
<http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist61/king.htm> of Weatherford 
authored a bill that would have allowed the Secretary of State to verify 
citizenship using information in a data base like birth records and 
social security numbers.

Representative Lon Burnam 
<http://http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist90/burnam.htm> of Fort 
Worth helped fight that bill, saying it was a tool for the "radical 
right" to suppress the votes of minorities and the elderly.

Representative Burnam said he believes any gains achieved by citizen 
verification would be outweighed by the thousands of U.S. voters who 
would be disenfranchised. To him, the integrity of new electronic voting 
machines is a bigger issue.

It is almost certain the issue will be back next session.

You can weigh in on this issue. Click here 
<http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/> to find out how you can get in touch 
with your representative and let them know where you stand.