While America doesn’t need another reason to distrust “Special Prosecutor” Jack Smith, here’s a new one. 

Jack Smith refused to investigate claims of illegal immigrants appearing on voter rolls and casting votes in federal elections during his tenure as the head of (ironically) the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section. 

Hans von Spakovsky, who manages the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, shared his experience as an election official in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 2011, he found almost 300 non-citizens on the voter list, and 117 had voted. He said they removed those people from the list and reported it to the Department of Justice (DOJ), but the DOJ didn’t act. 

Even more damning, data shows that between 2010 and 2012, “no cases” were filed under 18 U.S.C. 611, the law that makes it illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. 

Von Spakovsky, who works for The Heritage Foundation, spent four years as a lawyer at the Justice Department. He explained that many people working there are left-wing and don’t want to pursue non-citizens who are registering or voting.  

According to him, these people believe it’s unfair that non-citizens can’t vote, and some thought that allowing them to vote would benefit their political side. That’s why he thinks they weren’t interested in prosecuting those cases. 

Earlier this year, a research group called Just Facts released a study that found between 10 percent and 27 percent of non-citizens, or around two to five million people, are illegally registered to vote. 

According to the study, about half of the registered non-citizens vote in presidential elections. This means roughly 5% to 13% might illegally vote in the 2024 elections. 

The U.S. Census found that in 2022, there were 19.7 million non-citizens of voting age in the U.S. This number is likely low because it might not count those who lie about their citizenship or skip the survey. Plus, this number doesn’t include non-citizens who arrived after 2022, like those who legally immigrated, crossed the border illegally, or were admitted under the Biden administration’s policies. 

Last month, Governor Glenn Youngkin said Virginia had removed 6,303 non-citizens from its voter list. It’s unclear if these people had signed up “by mistake” or on purpose. Youngkin didn’t say if any of them had voted.  

But Virginia isn’t the only state with thousands of non-citizens registered to vote. 

In 2019, Pennsylvania admitted that it had accidentally registered almost 12,000 non-citizens to vote. That same year, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley found 95,000 non-citizens were registered to vote, and 58,000 of them had voted at some point since 1996. 

Still, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the federal government only pursued 35 cases of non-citizens voting in U.S. elections between 2001 and 2021. This small number of cases doesn’t match the thousands of non-citizens registered to vote in recent years, and at least hundreds have been reported for actually voting. 

A group of U.S. lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Garland in July, saying that since President Biden took office, there have been nearly 10 million border encounters. Many people were either released into the U.S. or avoided being caught. The lawmakers raised concerns about non-citizens registering to vote and questioned whether the Justice Department is enforcing the law against it.  

A congressional staff member told The Federalist that the DOJ didn’t respond to the letter, leaving Congress unsure about enforcement efforts. The DOJ also didn’t answer requests for comment or confirm the numbers. 

Several states, like Arizona and Georgia, tried to require people to use the federal registration form to show proof of citizenship, but court rulings backed by the Obama Administration stopped them. Instead of proving citizenship, the federal form allows people to register and vote using different types of IDs, like utility bills or bank statements. 

The form also has instructions specific to each state, sometimes with loopholes that could let non-citizens register. In New Jersey, for example, people only need to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or driver’s license number.  

If they don’t have these, they can write “NONE,” and the state will assign them a number to use when voting. The state form also lets people register without these IDs if they provide a copy of a photo ID or something with their name and address on it, like a store membership card, student ID, rent receipt, or government check. 

Jack Smith’s refusal to investigate claims as far back as 2011 proves his corruption was complete over a decade ago. It will be interesting to see how he fares under a Trump presidency.