Let’s debunk all the lies in Elon Musk’s false tweet about non-citizens voting – Mother Jones

Elon Musk presents Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with the Global Citizen Award.PCM/Zuma

On Sunday, Elon Musk released a lengthy diatribe about Democrats being the choice real “Threat to democracy.”

In his tweet, Musk claimed that Democrats are flying “asylum seekers” to swing states (that's not happening), fast-tracking them to citizenship (asylum seekers aren't being fast-tracked), and making sure said non-citizens can vote (Not -Citizens cannot vote). ). (In the tweet, Musk also cites Ohio as an example of a swing state; however, that is not the case.)

In short: Almost every claim in Musk's rant is factually incorrect.

As noted, the Republicans' “big lie” this time was that Democrats were stealing the election by pushing non-citizens to the ballot box. Trump backed the claim in the presidential debate earlier this month when asked if he acknowledged he lost in 2020. “A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in are trying to get them to vote,” the former president said. “And that’s why they allow them to come into our country.”

But as my colleague Isabela Dias reported, that's not correct. There are no masses of non-citizens registered to vote. In fact, as she wrote, “a study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that election officials in 42 jurisdictions who oversaw the tallying of 23.5 million votes found only about 30 cases of 'suspicious absentee voting' in the 2016 election.” “citizens” referred for investigation or prosecution.” – or 0.0001 percent of the vote.”

However, Musk's logic goes beyond the idea that non-citizens also vote. He claims that one in 20 “illegals” will do this become citizens per year, resulting in two million new legal voters for the Democrats in four years. “America will then become a one-party state and democracy will be over,” the billionaire wrote. “The only 'elections' will be the Democratic Party primaries.”

But that is far from the truth. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, only 29,000 asylum seekers became naturalized citizens last year. They all entered the U.S. before Joe Biden's presidency and were engaged in the five-year process of proving legal permanent residency in order to apply for citizenship.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also weighed in, responding to Musk's post with a different theory. “It’s a two-pronged strategy,” he explained. “If they bring illegals into blue states, the blue states will get additional presidential votes and additional congressional districts, even though the illegals cannot vote. That’s because we count them in the census and apportionment.”

As our reporter Ari Berman wrote in 2020, this is a longstanding complaint from the right. Political representation in the 14th Amendment includes “all persons” – not just those eligible to vote. And elected officials, in turn, represent the entire population, including those who cannot vote (e.g. children). Republicans want to exclude non-citizens from the census and change the paradigm to increase Republican voting power.

Massie's communications director John Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk has been making the case for months that non-citizens vote. The Washington Post reported in early September that the false claims worried election officials. Many told the newspaper that the posts coincided with a surge in voter roll requests and left them fearful of the possibility of violent threats in the run-up to November.

The owner of X also targeted a story from the Los Angeles Times It found that immigration authorities were approving citizenship applications “at the fastest rate in years.” The Just stressed that right-wing figures were making “baseless claims,” adding a statement from Naree Ketudat, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

She said the agency has processed naturalization applications within a six-month period for decades and that the department “does not take action based on electoral politics or upcoming elections.” Period.”

So it was all wrong. But Musk didn't let facts get in the way of his release.