Earlier today, you heard about how illegal aliens will be eligible for the EITC once they their Social Security cards from my RedState colleague streiff, but the problems don’t stop there. Because they will be getting Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses under the Obama amnesty, there’s a good chance some will end up illegally voting. The Washington Times has the story:

President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty will make it easier for illegal immigrants to improperly register and vote in elections, state elections officials testified to Congress on Thursday, saying that the driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers they will be granted create a major voting loophole.

While stressing that it remains illegal for noncitizens to vote, secretaries of state from Ohio and Kansas said they won’t have the tools to sniff out illegal immigrants who register anyway, ignoring stiff penalties to fill out the registration forms that are easily available at shopping malls, motor vehicle bureaus and in curbside registration drives.

Anyone registering to vote attests that he or she is a citizen, but Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said mass registration drives often aren’t able to give due attention to that part, and so illegal immigrants will still get through.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach said even some motor vehicle bureau workers automatically ask customers if they want to register to vote, which some noncitizens in the past have cited as their reason for breaking the law to register.

“It’s a guarantee it will happen,” Mr. Kobach said.

If you read further in the article you’ll notice that the Democrats are relying on two major talking points to dispute these claims. The first is to assert that President Obama’s amnesty plan does not change anything in state of federal law. If you reread what the Secretaries of State quoted in the article are saying, though, you’ll note that neither of them said that it would change either set of laws beyond granting illegals amnesty. Husted and Kobach said that the amnesty plan will merely make it easier for illegals to vote, even though they’d still be doing so fraudulently.

The second Democratic point of attack is to accuse Republicans, as usual, of trying to suppress the vote and intimidate voters. Frankly, I don’t think anything really needs to be said about how stupid this charge is, but I will note that Eleanor Holmes Norton is one of the people the quoted as making that argument. Democrat [mc_name name=’Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’L000562′ ] of Massachusetts made the argument that illegals wouldn’t risk breaking the law to playing such a small part in an election. I always find it risible whenever someone asserts that illegal aliens won’t break any laws now that they are here when they broke the law just getting here. We also know that illegals have voted in past elections, and now that they are being given amnesty, it is likely that more will be emboldened to do so.

Interestingly, from the article, we learn this interesting, yet unsurprising, tidbit: IRS chief John Koskinen told Congress that he was not consulted by the White House before Obama announced his plan. Neither of the secretaries of state quoted in the article said that they were asked about Obama’s amnesty, either. Since they are Republicans, this should not be surprising, but the fact that the President would not consult with his own man at the IRS is a sad commentary on Obama’s tendency to act unilaterally on his ideas without regard to the consequences. Basically, Obama wants his amnesty, and he wants it now. His pen and phone are ready, unless it involves writing or calling relevant federal and state officials for advice on his policy ideas.

At any rate, we know that Chicago and some places in Maryland allow illegal aliens to vote in local elections, and there are more cities currently considering whether they should allow them to do the same in their jurisdictions. Washington, DC, our nation’s capital, is regrettably one of them. Now, we know that the Obama amnesty plan will make it easier to vote in federal and state elections. Between all of these stories, it is a bad time for the protection of voting rights.