While many disagree, a majority of Americans believe that illegal immigrant voting will be "common" around the nation in the 2024 presidential election and will likely affect the vote's outcome, according to the most recent I&I/TIPP Poll.
The 1,244 Americans polled for the national online I&I/TIPP survey of voter opinion were asked: "How common do you think illegal immigrant voting will be in the November presidential elections?"
Of those responding, 52% said that they believed voting by those who immigrated to the U.S. illegally would be "common," while just 38% thought such voting would either be "rare" (23%) or "none at all" (15%). Of the remaining, 11% said they "not sure."
The poll of registered voters, taken from June 26-28, has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.
But the opinion was hardly uniform across the two main political parties, third parties and independents.
For instance, just 36% of Democrats thought that illegal immigrant voting would be common, while 51% said it wouldn't. For Republicans, 73% described illegal immigrant voting as common, while just 20% said it would not be common. Independents divide 48% common and 39% not common.
I&I/TIPP asked a follow-on question: "How likely is it that illegal immigrant voting will affect the presidential election outcome?"
Again, a majority — 51% — answered it was either "very likely" (25%) or "somewhat likely" (26%), while 38% responded "not very likely" (15%) or "not at all likely" (23%). Another 12% said they were "not sure."
Perhaps predictably, the responses by party affiliation broke down pretty much as with the first question: For Democrats, 36% thought illegal immigrant participation would affect the outcome, while 50% thought it wouldn't.
Among Republicans, 71% thought there would be an impact, versus 20% believing there wouldn't be one. And a plurality of 47% of independents believed there would be a likely influence, while 40% said it was not likely.
One major minority group in America saw things quite differently than white and black Americans: Hispanics. But contrary to what some might think, they were far more likely than the others to say that illegal immigrant voting would be common and affect the outcome.
Regarding the question of how common such voting would be, white and black voters' responses weren't very different at all, with 48% of black voters saying illegal immigrant participation in the election would be likely, compared to a near-identical 49% of white voters who agreed. But a sizable 58% of Hispanics said illegal participation likely would be common.
The same was mostly true for the second question regarding illegal voters' impacts on the actual outcome of the 2024 election. But this time blacks (56%) and Hispanics (61%) pretty much saw eye-to-eye that there would be a likely impact, versus just 49% of whites.
Are average Americans right? Or is it, as some on the left suggest, just xenophobic paranoia?
It is important to note that, while Republicans are at the top of the range in their concerns over illegal immigrant participation in the election, a significant minority and, in some cases, a plurality, of voters in the Democratic Party, third parties and independents worry about the same thing.
Under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, it is already against the law for those in the U.S. illegally to vote in federal elections.
The problem is, there is little if any routine enforcement of the law, so election officials have no real good handle on just how many illegal immigrants vote.
"If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections, all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name," House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a May 8 press conference pushing his Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE). "That's it. That's all that's required. And there's a very small chance that illegal would get caught."
He added, "the millions that have been paroled (by President Biden) can simply go to their local welfare office or the DMV and register to vote." Voter registration forms don't ask for proof of citizenship; they simply ask those filling out the form to "attest" that they are citizens.
As the I&I/TIPP Poll suggests, this is now a bipartisan issue. A Pew Research survey from earlier in the year shows that 81% favor requiring a government-issued ID in order to vote, a key element of the SAVE act that passed Congress, but that President Biden has vowed to veto.
How serious is the problem of illegal immigrant voting? The truth is, no one really knows, since the government does little or nothing to prevent or even monitor it.
Government data show roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., but that was before the last three years of record illegal immigration flow across U.S. borders.
However, according to official data, border agents have "encountered" more than 10 million people that have crossed illegally into the U.S. during Biden's time in office, including roughly 1.7 million "gotaways" who crossed without getting caught.
"In fiscal year 2023, Border Patrol agents arrested more than 35,000 illegal aliens with criminal convictions, including nearly 600 known gang members," according to The Federalist. "That number greatly surpasses the just over 4,200 illegal aliens with criminal histories detained in fiscal year 2019."
Also, since 2021, almost 300 people on the U.S. Terrorist Watchlist have been apprehended at the border.
Why has this happened?
After entering office, Biden signed more than 60 executive orders, 24 of them "direct reversals" of Trump policies, with a special focus on immigration. As CNN noted early in Biden's first year as president, "To date (April 30, 2021), 10 of his 12 actions on immigration are reversals of Trump’s policies."
Americans are now alarmed over this sudden influx of illegal entrants, which has overwhelmed cities and states across the nation.
A major concern: "Welfare offices and other agencies in at least 46 US states are providing voter registration forms to migrants without requiring proof of citizenship," The New York Post reported last week.
In short, the possibility of massive voter fraud among undocumented immigrants is very real. Indeed it's so real, as the I&I/TIPP Poll shows, that Americans worry about its impact on the 2024 presidential election.
I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past five presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
