In quantum physics, there’s a famous thought experiment about a cat sealed in a box, both alive and dead until someone opens the lid. Regular readers know I’ve visited that box before. Washington has now given us a sequel: the voter who both voted and didn’t, until someone bothers to check the voter file.
Nobody at the Department of Homeland Security bothered.
Last Friday, DHS handed Fox News an exclusive. ICE had arrested Helda Araceli Mendez-Merida, a Guatemalan national, in Indianapolis on Sept. 3 after she “illegally voted in a past election.” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin promised she’d be deported “so she can never again poison our elections.” ICE’s Patricia Hyde said she “attempted to subvert a national election.”
Strong words. Here’s the problem. According to the Marion County Clerk’s Office, which actually runs elections here, she never voted. She registered in 2019, and the record shows no ballot cast. Not in a presidential year, not in a mid-term, not a state, county, city, township election, not even a school referendum.
And get this, she isn’t even registered under the name in the press release. So the federal agency that wants a bigger hand in running American elections couldn’t find the right voter record and couldn’t spell the name. And by its own admission, it also couldn’t say which election she supposedly voted in. To Fox’s credit, it reported that officials said it wasn’t clear which election that was.
Let that marinate. You arrest someone. You issue a national statement accusing her of subverting a federal election. And you can’t name the election. That’s not an indictment. To quote Seinfeld, “And these guys want to be our latex salesmen.”
Now, let me put on my lawyer hat, because fairness is still a thing. If she’s a noncitizen and she registered to vote, that’s a federal crime all by itself, no ballot required. DHS could have said exactly that and stood on solid ground. Instead it reached for the bigger headline, and the bigger headline appears to be wrong. Remember the Diego Morales saga?
That matters, and not just to her. We’re about two weeks from early voting. Registration closes Oct. 5. The City-County Building opens for early voting Oct. 6, and the satellite sites open Oct. 24. Every phantom vote a federal agency announces does two things. It hands ammunition to folks convinced the whole system is rigged. And it gives the people who actually run elections one more fire to put out on a Friday night.
Yes, I know the caveat. The county clerk is a Democrat on the ballot this fall who has made fending off outside meddling in elections a campaign theme. Consider the source. But the voter file doesn’t have a party. Either there’s a vote on the record or there isn’t. If DHS has a ballot, a poll book entry or an absentee envelope, produce it. I’ll happily write the correction column myself.
Until then, it’s the usual pattern. Somebody announces a noncitizen voter and the internet sets itself on fire. A few days later, the people who keep the actual records quietly note the facts are a bit different. The Fox post racked up 55,000 views. The correction gets a shrug.
So here’s a modest proposal for the folks promising to safeguard election integrity: start by safeguarding your press releases. Check the voter file. Spell the name right. Name the election. If you can’t manage those three things, maybe don’t tell Hoosiers you’re the ones who should be running the show.
Because right now, Washington’s version of election integrity looks a lot like that cat. Nobody knows if it’s alive until somebody opens the box.
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is the editor and publisher of IndyPolitics.org and an attorney licensed in Indiana and Illinois. He has voted in basically every election since 1992.
