As many as 2.2 million non-citizen immigrants in the U.S. are likely illegally registered to vote, according to a report by a non-profit research organization.
James Agresti of the non-profit research group Just Facts said that of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., as many as 800,000 to 2.2 million are likely registered to vote.
His findings were bolstered by The National Hispanic Survey survey conducted by McLaughlin and Associates to gauge the opinions of Hispanics living in the U.S. on a wide range of issues. A shocking 13 percent of admitted non-citizen Hispanic respondents in the survey said they were registered to vote.
“Contrary to the claims of many media outlets and so-called fact-checkers, this nationally representative scientific poll confirms that a sizable number of non-citizens in the U.S. are registered to vote,” Agresti said.
Agresti said applying the 13 percent figure from the survey to 2013 U.S. Census numbers for non-citizen Hispanic adults would amount to 1.5 million illegally registered Latinos.
In 2013, the Census reported that 11.8 million non-citizen Hispanic adults lived here.
As the nation’s immigrant population grows, both legal and illegal, the issue of non-citizens voting illegally has caught the attention of political party organizations. Aliens tend to vote Democratic rather than Republican.
In 2014 two professors at Old Dominion University and one at George Mason University collaborated to produce the first data-driven analysis of non-citizen voting, relying on the biennial Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), headquartered at Harvard University, with polling by YouGov.
Relying on the CCES responses to citizenship questions, the ODU team estimated that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in the 2008 election. They estimated a range as low as 38,000 and as high at 2.8 million.
The 2013 Hispanic Survey by McLaughlin and Associates confirms the ODU study. The Hispanic Survey’s 13 percent registration rate is right in line with what the CCES data indicates in multiple elections.
Agresti said the ODU study found that in 2008, 2010 and 2012, anywhere between 14.5 percent and 15.6 percent of self-declared non-citizen adults were registered to vote.
In other words, the CCES and National Hispanic Survey came to similar conclusions even though they are based on different sample sizes and methodologies.