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Comment by fujigawa | Hacker News Reader

One of the more egregious stories that made national news and captured the zeitgeist of this situation was the alleged illegal immigrant that was working as a sworn police officer in suburban Chicago:

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-illegal-alien-...

So given that this was allowed to happen, you want me to believe it's impossible for an illegal immigrant to cast a vote in an election? In Chicago? Where the dead people vote?

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/2-investigators-chicago...

> In all, the analysis showed 119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade.

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So there aren't any stats for illegal immigrants voting then I take it.

I would expect they don't check for citizenship when becoming a police officer. I do expect them to check when a voter is registered. Frankly, given the amount of hubbub about illegals voting, I would expect there to at least be a notable amount of it happening that can be pointed to.

Please do not make these sorts of claims based on vibes. They have wider consequences on the amount of hate towards foreigners - illegal or not - that is completely undeserved.

Yeah? What about being a sworn police officer is it that you think qualifies you to vote? Have you ever worked a shift as an EJ? Do you know how the Illinois/Cook County voting system works?

Is it your contention that if someone was an illegal immigrant as alleged, and in doing so able to pass a local government background check without arousing suspicion, someone wouldn't be able to outsmart some 80 year old election judge who is volunteering her time that would otherwise be spent watching reruns of Judge Judy?

The system is not as airtight as you purport it to be.

From this I can infer your answer to "have you ever been an EJ" is no.

As a starting point, citizenship is not in fact a state requirement for service as a sworn police officer. In my muni, it's explicitly not: all that's required is authorization to work.

Second, it's not the job of EJs to judge whether people are citizens or not. The median EJ in Cook County, for what it's worth, is 45 years old.

Do you think it's impossible that there are undocumented folks living under false identities and/or stolen SSNs casting votes in elections? It's a yes or no question.

To put it another way, do you believe non-citizens in this country illegally (and thus already breaking the law), have some sort of deference when it comes to obeying election laws?

Thankfully we have the spry 45 year old election judges to oversee it all.

No, having served as an EJ a couple times in Illinois now and understanding how the system works, I'm confident that there is no material amount of non-citizen voting happening in Cook County.

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