Strange. Immigrants and voter fraud....

[ghostsinthemachine]

On two of my friend GB pages is this story, or something similar. Yesterday I noticed a couple as well. how about anyone else? Seen or experienced something similar?

Something very strange is going on. A friend (who is a permanent resident/green card holder) received a letter from the the town clerk saying that he was now registered to vote, which is weird because he has never registered to vote! He has always known that he isn't allowed to vote until he becomes a US citizen.
I looked online and discovered it's a crime to register to vote as a non-citizen and could result in deportation.
There was a Voter Registration Certificate included with the letter which named the DMV as the agency who registered him. So my friend called the DMV. The person who spoke with him there said they've been getting many calls about this from other people with the same issue and that these calls just started this week. Their records show that my friend hasn't visited the DMV since a few years ago and they don't know how he became registered to vote.
The date on the registration certificate says he registered to vote on January 23rd, 2017.
The DMV told him he should call the city and get his name removed from the registered voter list ASAP, which he did. Considering the date of his supposed registration, and considering the travel ban and everything else that has already happened with the new administration, including all the claims about massive voter fraud, we are suspicious that this event could be a ploy to deport legal residents who supposedly fraudulently registered to vote.

[BSdetect]

1. This is no coincidence.

I suspect some hacking of the DMV to support allegations of voter fraud.

They will stoop to any dirty trick.

[spanone]

2. K&R...

[global1]

3. Shows Just How Sinister These People Are...nt

[procon]

4. Sounds like another social media conspiracy theory that spreads Trump's lies

about the 3-5 million imaginary illegal voters that stole the popular vote from him.

C'mon folks, just because you read it on the Internet does not make this junk true. This tall tale might be popping up in emails and forums as people "share" the news, but we should not be willing participants in spreading right-wing talking points. This looks like a typical rightwing email hoax, a story with no cited source or verified link to any original reporting, that just happens to support one of Trump's favorite memes.

[KittyWampus]

5. If this is true, it is IMPERATIVE that a journalist be contacted and all letters

be kept and conversations recorded via journal.

[ghostsinthemachine]

6. Vermont DMV registers green card holders to vote

SEVEN DAYS Some local green card holders may have recently received disconcerting mail from town clerks in Vermont. Specifically, they've been sent notifications saying that they are registered to vote.

Why would that be cause for alarm for green card holders? For one thing, it's illegal for non-citizens to vote. And doing so could lead to deportation.

At a time of heightened anxiety in immigrant and non-citizen communities — not to mention President Donald Trump's obsession with voter fraud — the mystery mailings inspired some justifiable conspiracy theorizing on social media. Is this a plot by Trump agents looking to set up non-Americans for voter fraud?

On Friday, a Facebook post describing the situation of a green card holder referred to as "Luke" went semi-viral, locally and beyond. A search of the post's wording revealed dozens and dozens of reposts, including many from well outside Vermont. Seven Days attempted to track Luke down. We couldn't.

According to the post, Luke, a permanent resident/green card holder, "received a letter from the town clerk saying that he was now registered to vote, which is weird because he has never registered to vote!"

The letter identified the Department of Motor Vehicles as the agency that registered him on January 23 — though he hadn't visited the DMV since 2013, the post said. Aware that he cannot legally vote in the United States, Luke got it straightened out, per the post, but the question remained: Had others had a similar experience?

The answer is yes.

Chris Winters, Vermont's deputy secretary of state, responded to one of the Facebook posts on Friday and suggested that Luke's story was valid and had happened to others. He explained that the Secretary of State's Office was aware of the issue and attributed it to a "data glitch" at the DMV related to the state's Automatic Voter Registration program, which was rolled out as a pilot program a few weeks ago.

A couple of hours later, Secretary of State Jim Condos made a statement via press release confirming Winters' explanation.

According to the release, the DMV's data transfer process for the AVR program was "over-inclusive" for a period of 18 days between January 3 and January 20. The technology sent more information than necessary to the Secretary of State's Office. This included info for individuals who are ineligible to vote.

Condos' office stopped the transfer on January 20 after discovering the glitch. The DMV, meanwhile, has identified the problem and is working to gauge the full scope of the records sent in error, Condos said. An update on those findings is expected next week.

"We regret the error and look forward to resuming automatic voter registration soon," Condos wrote.

Since there was no election during the DMV snafu, Condos noted that no ineligible votes have been cast. He adds that eligible voters will remain eligible and those added to the system in error will be removed.

Perhaps most importantly, he wrote, "Those who were mistakenly registered through this coding error have not violated the law and will be purged from the system."

Welcome news, we imagine, for "Luke" — and others who unwittingly found themselves in the same situation.


http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2017/02/03/vermont-dmv-glitch-registers-green-card-holders-to-vote