RIDMV Provided No Info on Non-Citizen

Only American Citizens are Legally Entitled to Vote 

RI Election Integrity Task Force Calls on RIDMV to Adopt Driver Privilege  Card Voting Safeguards 

According to Sara Vieira, founder of Rhode Island Fair Elections & Education, the RI Division of Motor Vehicles will begin issuing Driver Privilege Cards to illegal immigrants beginning on July 1.

“The RI Fair Elections Coalition is calling on the Division to properly code the Driver’s Privilege Cards so they may not be used by non-citizens to vote. Further, we stress the need for the DMV and RI Board of Elections to develop training materials for municipal and state election officials to prevent the unlawful registration of foreign nationals to our voter rolls,” stated Sara Vieira,, whose non-partisan group is dedicated to ensuring fair and honest elections in Rhode Island.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: On June 15, Vieira and Magan Brillon discussed this issue on In The Dugout with Mike Stenhouse; WATCH here at the 29:00 mark.

Last year, the General Assembly passed legislation that gave driver’s privilege cards to illegal immigrants in Rhode Island. The legislation for these Driver’s Privilege Cards specified that they would be identical front and back to the existing driver’s license for legal residents with no visible differentiation between lawful voters and ineligible immigrants.

Chairman of House Judiciary, Robert Craven (D-District 32), was asked how election officials would be able to discern that the holder of the Privilege Cards would be ineligible to vote. Rep. Craven provided no answer or solution to protect lawful Rhode Island voters, nonsensically noting that concerned opponents were reading too much into the term ‘identical’. Consequently, the legislation was not amended to require coding that would prevent the use of these cards for voting.

“This is an omission big enough to drive a Mack truck through, and possibly thousands of illegal voters.” said Vieira. “This year we followed up with the Division of Motor Vehicles to ensure that non-citizens would not be able to use the cards for voting.”

She continued, “ In February, Rhode Island Fair Elections and Education sent an Access to Public Records request (APRA) to the RI Division of Motor Vehicles requesting any and all documentation that details steps being taken to prevent use of the Driver Privilege Cards to unlawfully vote, including changes to the application, barcoding on the back of the card and any and all other changes made to prevent either innocent or fraudulent misuse of these Driver Privilege Cards.”

“To say the least, the reply from the Department of Motor Vehicles is troubling. The document search found no documents responsive to the request for plans or actions taken by the DMV to prevent the use of these ‘visibly identical’ cards for voting. There are No emails, No instructions or contracts to the barcoding vendors, No training documents for front line personnel. In other words, no action has been taken to protect Rhode Island citizens from having their vote diluted and diminished by non-citizens. This is unacceptable.”

“It appears from their reply that the DMV is relying on an honor system in which illegal immigrants simply know that they are not lawfully permitted to vote. That is a reckless and irresponsible supposition.” she continued.

“How would illegal immigrants with or without language barriers know that they are ineligible to vote and doing so would be committing a crime? If a political operative comes to them and persuades them to vote, how would they know they are being manipulated?”

“At Rhode Island Fair Elections and Education, we believe in the protection of every legal vote. We believe in fair, honest, and transparent elections. That means our elections officials and the agencies that assist them must be held to high standards of behavior that protects the sanctity of every American citizen’s voting privileges.”

Lawful non-citizen residents of Rhode Island are eligible for regular driver’s licenses. The drivers privilege cards are for illegal immigrants. Neither group can lawfully vote in our elections.

“By law, only American citizens may vote. We are concerned that the DMV has seemingly not developed a barcoding protocol that will prevent these cards from being used for voting privileges and the legislature has ignored its oath and mandate to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the State of Rhode Island.” Vieira concluded.

We encourage all concerned citizens to join us and demand that the RI Division of Motor Vehicles and the RI Board of Elections act now to prevent the Drivers Privilege cards from being used by illegal immigrants to vote. Voter protection measures are vital to fair and honest elections. While we must make it easy for all citizens to vote, we must make it impossible to cheat.