US immigration office wrongly tells hundreds of new citizens they can't vote this year
The office of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in Boston says it made a mistake by misinforming hundreds of newly sworn-in citizens of their voting rights in next week's elections.
USCIS officials incorrectly told as many as 409 new citizens that they were unable to vote because their naturalisation ceremony had taken place after the 24 October Massachusetts voter registration deadline, local GBH News reported.
The officers were mistaken, however, as the state allows new citizens until 4pm on 2 November - the day before the election - to register to vote.
USCIS Boston District Director Denis C Riordan confirmed the incident to GBH News, saying the office was reaching out by phone to people who had been given the wrong information at 36 naturalisation ceremonies that took place on Monday and Tuesday.
Riordan told the news agency that officers based their incorrect information on a website provided by the state's secretary.
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The mistake was first pointed out by Erika Constantine, a Canadian-born resident who moved to Massachusetts almost two decades ago. She became a US citizen on Tuesday and was at one of the ceremonies where the incorrect information was given.
Constantine had checked with the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth ahead of her naturalisation to confirm her ability to register and vote in this year's election despite missing the standard deadline.
"So I raised my hand and said: 'That’s incorrect!'" Constantine told GBH News.
Concerned that other voters had also been misinformed, she began spreading the word that day among those going through the naturalisation oath.
"If I hadn’t said anything, those 20 people [might] not have voted or wouldn't know they had a right to vote. And that's just one ceremony," Constantine told GBH News.
"Every single vote matters. Government officials need to do their duty to inform people correctly," she said.
President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that unprecendented numbers of mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud by Democrats in the 3 November presidential election.
The president has also repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if the vote counts indicate he has lost to Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Early voting data shows Democrats are voting by mail in far greater numbers than Republicans.
In states including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that do not begin counting mail-in ballots until election day, initial results could skew the results in Trump's favour, experts say, while the mailed ballots counted more slowly are expected to favour Biden.
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