Video shows noncitizens registered to vote in Arizona

The Heritage Foundation says it has video evidence of people who aren’t U.S. citizens living in Arizona and hoping to vote in this year’s presidential election.

The video was recorded at the Los Vecinos Apartments in Phoenix. Heritage’s Oversight Project went door-to-door and said it found six people who said they were not citizens but were registered to vote anyway.

Some of them indicated they would cast a ballot for Ms. Harris if they could.

“Did you register here or at work?” the Heritage investigator asks in Spanish, posing as a community organizer.

“At work,” one replies in the video.

“Are you a citizen?” the investigator prods.

“No,” the person says.

Others said they were registered at home or when they went to migrant services centers.

One man seemed to struggle with his vote.

“Look, Trump is a businessman. Kamala Harris isn’t a businesswoman,” the unidentified man says in the translation provided by Heritage. “But I think Kamala is with the community, but things will stay the same.”

He worried that she might not keep her campaign promises, but he also seemed concerned about Mr. Trump’s announced plans for a wave of deportations.

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank in Washington.

The people on the video are not identified, and there is no way of knowing whether they are in fact registered or determining their actual citizenship status.

The video comes amid a fierce debate over the surge of newly arrived immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and whether they would, illegally, be able to register and cast ballots this year.

Democratic elections officials and many media outlets have called noncitizen voting a myth, saying it rarely happens.

GOP election officials, though, have identified thousands of names on rolls in their states, and say election records show some of them did cast ballots. 

The Justice Department weighed in earlier this month with a warning to state officials to tread lightly in trying to clean up their voter rolls.

In new guidance to states, the department said federal law allows states to scrub their lists but it must be done within strict guidelines and only for approved reasons, such as a voter has moved out of the jurisdiction, has died or has requested removal.

Changes cannot be made close to an election, the department said.

The guidance is largely a restatement of Justice Department interpretation of federal election law, but the timing irked key members of Congress, including Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee.

“The guidance document appears designed to intimidate, rather than assist, those tasked with ensuring the integrity of our electoral process,” the Wisconsin Republican wrote in a letter Thursday.

He said the Justice Department should be helping states clean their rolls rather than taking an “aggressive” stance against them.

“Many individuals who have entered the country illegally have found their way onto voter registration rolls, as seen in recent removals by states. The department’s refusal to acknowledge this reality further undermines confidence in the federal government’s commitment to safeguarding our elections,” Mr. Steil wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The Washington Times has sought comment from the Justice Department for this story.