At least 86 non-citizens have been registered voters in Philadelphia since 2013, and almost half — 40 — even voted in at least one recent election, according to a legal group that sued to get voter registration records.
Joseph Vanderhulst, an attorney with the Public Interest Legal Foundation, noted Philadelphia knows about those 86 illegal voters only because officials received specific requests — in almost every case from the voters themselves — to remove the names from the rolls. He said there is no way to know how many non-citizens might be registered to vote in Philadelphia, let alone in the rest of politically crucial Pennsylvania.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Who knows how many are on and don’t ask to be taken off?”
Research by the law firm also indicated that Philadelphia makes no effort to proactively remove non-citizens or incarcerated felons, who also are ineligible to vote under Pennsylvania law. Philadelphia becomes the latest jurisdiction that the Public Interest Legal Foundation has revealed to have irregularities in the voter rolls. The group recently found 1,046 non-citizens who had been registered to vote in eight Virginia counties and that nearly 200 cast ballots between 2005 and 2015.