Every American Is Undocumented Until Proven Otherwise

The Justice Department established a new election-security standard this week declaring every American an undocumented immigrant until federal prosecutors finish checking the paperwork. The policy emerged after the department demanded that California isolate more than 20,000 ballots linked to people it described as “likely” noncitizens and asked Washington state to set aside ballots from more than 400 voters while officials investigate whether citizenship has become contagious. State election administrators questioned the accuracy of the federal lists, citing the obsolete legal doctrine that eligible citizens should not lose voting rights because a database became suspicious.

President Donald Trump praised the initiative as a replacement for the dangerously permissive custom of counting ballots cast by registered voters. “We’re protecting democracy by not counting the votes until we know they’re good votes, beautiful votes, preferably votes that understand exactly what we’re trying to accomplish,” Trump said. Under the upgraded system, passports, birth certificates and naturalization records will remain acceptable forms of identification unless an unnamed database, hurried federal review or politically useful hunch indicates otherwise. Voters may rebut the government’s suspicions by producing documents already held by the government, locating an employee authorized to read them and completing the process before their ballot acquires an unacceptable opinion.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized the effort, clinging to the radical belief that the government should produce reliable evidence before obstructing a citizen’s vote. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs likewise warned that legitimate voters could be swept into the challenge, recklessly proposing that accuracy should participate in election integrity. Justice Department officials reassured the public that any errors can be corrected after Election Day, once the ballots are irrelevant, Congress is seated and the affected voters have learned an important lesson about administrative humility. The department also emphasized that citizens wrongly flagged by the program remain fully eligible to vote in every election whose outcome has not yet become inconvenient. Federal officials have therefore secured the ballot by treating citizenship as a rebuttable rumor and every voter as an undocumented immigrant until proven electorally harmless.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.