American rappers Chris Brown, Drake, 50 Cent, Trey Songz, and The Recreation have all been registered to vote below the identical suburban handle in Katy, Texas, igniting discussions a few vital loophole in federal voting legal guidelines, Houston Chronicle reported.
The handle in query is a modest, beige $300,000 home located in a brand new improvement in Katy, a metropolis with a inhabitants of 21,894 in response to the 2020 census. The home-owner expressed shock and confusion upon discovering the high-profile names registered at their handle.
In keeping with the information outlet, this can be a results of a prank that took benefit of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, which permits people to register to vote utilizing simply their authorized names and start dates, no ID required.
HAVA was signed into legislation by President George W. Bush over twenty years in the past, on October 29, 2002. The prank has inadvertently forged a lightweight on the potential for misuse inherent within the system.
The supply permitting individuals to register with out an ID was written into the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 for eligible voters who don’t have a driver’s license or a Social Safety quantity, in response to Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights program on the Brennan Middle for Justice.
“There is not a large group of people in the country who are eligible to vote that don’t have either of those things, but there are some people,” Morales-Doyle mentioned. That might embody U.S. residents who had been born exterior of the US and by no means utilized for a Social Safety quantity.
The identical federal legislation additionally prevents an applicant who submitted a false registration from profiting from it.
“The first time they went to go to vote, they’d have to show something, like a utility bill showing that Drake pays the utility bills at that address,” Morales-Doyle mentioned. “And they wouldn’t be able to do that.”
Election officers additionally root out pretend registrations by conducting routine voter roll upkeep, comparable to sending out mailers to the handle listed and eradicating the registration if the voter doesn’t vote in two federal cycles or reply to the affirmation discover.
Though the artists didn’t vote within the final election, and due to this fact posed no instant risk of voter fraud, the incident has raised questions in regards to the ease with which one can manipulate voter registrations. In Texas, a state that requires accredited ID for voting, such a prank is very pointless and dangerous.
Randall Erben, a legislation professor on the College of Texas at Austin with a background as an assistant secretary of state in Texas, emphasizes the seriousness of the difficulty.
“These people are either committing high misdemeanors or felonies,” Erben warned whoever registered these celebrities to vote. “This is not fooling around.”
Mark Songer, a former FBI agent and forensic doc examiner, confirmed that “all five of the voter registration application forms more than likely share a common author,” suggesting a deliberate and fraudulent effort.
In keeping with the Houston Chronicle:
Submitting a false or solid voter utility kind is a third-degree felony, in response to Erben, and unlawfully appearing as somebody’s agent is a Class B misdemeanor.
Voter registration purposes are also public paperwork, triggering different prison penalties towards forgery and misstatements on such paperwork. Making a false assertion on an utility is a Class A misdemeanor.
Class A misdemeanors are punishable by as much as one yr in jail and a fantastic as much as $4,000, in response to the Texas Penal Code. Class B misdemeanors are punishable by as much as 180 days in jail and as much as a $2000 fantastic. Third-degree felonies are punishable by wherever from two to 10 years in jail, and a fantastic as much as $10,000.
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