American Confidence in Elections: Preventing Noncitizen Voting and Other Foreign Interference – By Hans von Spakovsky (The Heritage Foundation) / May 22, 2024
Summary | We should provide both access and security in the election process. We want to ensure that every eligible citizen is able to vote and that those votes are not diluted, voided, or stolen due to unlawful registration and voting by aliens who have no right to participate in our political and election process and by the unfair and unjust inclusion of aliens in the apportionment of the House of Representatives, as well as the drawing of boundary lines for political districts at the federal, state and local level. Individual aliens and foreign entities and governments should also not be able to interfere in recall elections and ballot-issue referenda. That is essential in convincing the public that they can and should turn out to exercise the franchise and actively and meaningfully participate in the governance of our nation.
Testimony before Committee on House Administration
United States House of Representatives
May 16, 2024
Hans A. von Spakovsky
Senior Legal Fellow
Manager, Election Law Reform Initiative
Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies
The Institute for Constitutional Government
The Heritage Foundation
My name is Hans A. von Spakovsky. I appreciate the invitation to be here today. I am a Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining The Heritage Foundation, I was a Commissioner on the U.S. Federal Election Commission for two years (2006-2007), where I was one of six commissioners responsible for enforcing the Federal Election Campaign Act.
Before that, I spent four years at the U.S. Department of Justice as a career civil service lawyer in the Civil Rights Division, where I received three Meritorious Service Awards (2003, 2004, and 2005). I began my tenure at the Justice Department as a trial attorney in 2001 and was promoted to Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (2002-2005), where I helped coordinate the enforcement of federal voting rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”), the Help America Vote Act (“HAVA”), and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.1
