A noncitizen has pleaded guilty to voter fraud in Kansas, the state's secretary of state announced.
The Associated Press reported that Victor David Garcia Bebek, a noncitizen, pleaded guilty to three counts of voting unlawfully in 2012 and 2014 and faces up to three years of probation and a $5,000 fine. The complaint on the case obtained by AP, which was kept under wraps until Wednesday, identified six felony and misdemeanor counts.
Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based election integrity group, said the case is noteworthy because some Democrats claim noncitizen voting does not occur.
Kansas is the only state where a secretary of state has prosecution power over election law violations, Churchwell noted.
"Kansas is the only state that vests prosecution power over election law violations with its secretary of state," Churchwell told the Washington Free Beacon. "DAs will not and have exhibited an unwillingness to pursue cases that end in $5,000 fines and unsupervised probation."
Churchwell said other states rely on individuals who commit voter fraud to accidentally out themselves.
"Even with prosecutor powers in other states, without a Kansas model of requiring proof of citizenship when applying to vote, other states will be reliant on fraudsters to mistakenly out themselves before being discovered," Churchwell said. "One must wait for them to be honest on a jury call; seek a noncitizen driver's license; or admit to previous voting activity during the naturalization process. It's all discovery by happenstance. Plus, it requires states to share this information between agencies...which is in no way a given."
The federal government can make the discovery process easier for states by sharing information from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, Churchwell said.