Non-Citizen Voting and the 2014 Election

The Washington Post created a stir last week when it published a piece by two political scientists that revealed the findings from their study on non-citizen voting. Using some survey data, they found that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent voted in 2010.

These numbers are admittedly small, but they are not inconsequential. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a chart estimating the non-citizen share of the population in each state. Using this we can estimate what share of the vote next Tuesday will be cast by non-citizens in each state using the political scientists’ findings.

Florida is the state most at risk of having a close election decided by non-citizen votes. According the to KFF site, 9 percent of Florida residents are non-citizens. Assuming that accurately reflects the non-citizen share of Florida adults, that means between .58 and .20 percent of the total votes will be cast by non-citizens. To put it starkly, if 2014 turnout is the same as 2010 turnout (5.36 million), that means between 11,000 and 31,000 ballots will be cast by non-citizens. That’s a huge number for a race that currently is forecast to be virtually a dead heat.

Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Georgia also bear close watching. The KFF site pegs the noncitizen share of the population at 7 (Conn., Mass.) or 6 (Colo., Ga.) percent. That means a minimum of .13 percent of the vote will be cast by non-citizens, if the study is correct...