Concerning The Sex Life Of Chopsticks
When officials from a Chinese medical school asked if “Dr. Flynn” could give a lecture on a subject way out of my field, American Maryknoll Father (and medical doctor, expert on HIV/AIDS) Scott Harris responded, “Give him a day to prepare and he can talk for two hours about the sex life of chopsticks.”
Debating and “forensics” (not the TV medical-cop type) under the Marist Brothers at Christopher Columbus High School (sixty years before Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza made CCHS famous) emphasized the importance of preparing to take either side – pro or con – on a subject.
“Know the other side’s argument before they begin and have your facts straight” are the preeminent rules of real – not televised political claptrap – debating.
In that spirit and as America sinks into the cesspool of “debating” illegal aliens voting and voter-ID legislation, we’re gonna venture into the world of pro-Republican and pro-“right wing leaning” arguments.
FIRST FACTS:
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States:
“Article 1, Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
You must be a United States citizen to vote in federal and state elections. It is a federal crime for noncitizens to register or vote in federal elections, and it’s a crime under every state’s laws. (A limited number of states and local municipalities – generally school boards – allow non-citizen voting.)
Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR/“Green Card holders”) are not eligible to vote. LPR – for five continuous years - is the first step in qualifying for citizenship and the franchise (right to vote).
Having completed the five years – two or three years, if married to a U.S. citizen – an LPR can apply for citizenship.
Given the present status of U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), quota limits for various countries and other factors, the process from LPR to citizenship and voting rights can be from two to five years or until the Second Coming or the construction of the first major city on Mars.
The Cato Institute (cato.org/about), self-described as “an assiduously nonpartisan and independent public policy research organization – or think tank…”.), notes President Trump’s claim “These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally” and calls it “sadly commonplace… even the pro-Trump Heritage Foundation’s database of election crimes listed only 24 instances of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections from 2003 to 2023.” [Emphasis added.]
The Cato Institute report (“Trump’s Claims About Noncitizens Voting Are False. We Can Prove It.” November 5, 2026) is a same-day reprint of The New York Times article “What’s Really Driving These Bogus Claims of Voter Fraud.” (Stephen Richter. February 5, 2026.)
Richer cites reviews ordered by state officials or legislatures:
Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the state’s top election official, conducted a monthlong review of approximately 2.1 million registered voters. They found one “confirmed noncitizen” and he/she never voted.
Idaho tested their voter rolls in 2024 and found 36 “very likely” registered noncitizens. Secretary of State Phil McGrane reported “out of the million plus registered voters we started with, we’re down to 10 thousandths of a percent” of noncitizens were registered. Do the math. That’s 0.00001%!!! (And the monk-teacher kicked Father Flynn out of class on the second day of senior year calculus at CCHS.)
In 2025, Louisiana officials identified approximately 390 noncitizen registrants, but only 79 had voted in at least one election “over the last several decades (out of 2.9 million registrants).” (With AI, Father Flynn calculates 0.002724% “over the last several decades.” His math skills are impressive!)
Richer reported a 2024 Georgia investigation found 20 registered noncitizens – out of 8.2 million registrants. “I came across a total of two possible instances of noncitizens voting out of some 2.5 million registered voters.”
Macomb (Michigan) County Clerk Anthony Forlini, who is running for Secretary of State in 2026, reported finding 15 noncitizens on his county’s voter rolls of over 724,000 registered voters – 0.02071823204%. Upon further review it was found that three of the 15 were citizens, four had been removed from voter rolls, four were under further investigation and four seem to be noncitizens.
In the Times article and Cato Institute post, Richer makes his point:
“These investigations affirm what is simply common sense. People largely aren’t willing to risk their status in the United States — the land of economic opportunity — for the ability to cast one more vote out of hundreds of thousands or millions in a state and hundreds of millions in the country.
“The investigations also suggest that many politicians and public interest groups, all of which have access to these reports, may not actually care that much about election security. The constant talk of noncitizen voting is more likely about scoring political points and bolstering fund-raising.
“Playing politics with the idea of fraudulent voters and stolen elections comes at a real cost to American confidence in our elections. It’s an affront to our democracy and to all those who work to deliver free and fair elections. It’s also an ominous sign for where things may be heading this year.”
Anticipating the 2024 elections, The Heritage Foundation published “Illegal Aliens Are Still Voting In Our Elections,” (July 10, 2024, Matthew Tragesser) including among the “Key Takeaways”:
“In Virginia more than 11,000 aliens were initially listed on the state’s voter roll within the past decade.”
Tragesser’s critical paragraph:
“In Virginia, for example, more than 11,000 aliens were initially listed on the state’s voter roll within the past decade. In New Jersey, at least 616 known aliens ended up in the state’s voter registration system just a few years ago. Since 2021, nearly 200 aliens were initially on voter rolls in Arizona.”
Except…
One big problem: Tragesser did not cite a single prosecuted or proven case of “alien” voting in Virginia, New Jersey or Arizona.
“Initially listed” does not mean “actually attempted to vote or voted.”
Moreover, Virginia Radio WVTF (“Virginia court records indicate cases of non-citizen voting are extremely rare,” Brad Kutner, October30, 2024.) reported:
“According to hundreds of Virginia state court cases reviewed by Radio IQ, confirmed cases of noncitizen voting don’t exist. But that hasn't stopped such rhetoric from popping up during this year's election cycle.
“‘Last year we removed nearly 80,000 deceased voters from our roles,’ That’s Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in video posted to social media in August. ‘And shockingly, we also identified 6,300 noncitizens on our voter rolls. They have also been removed.’
“Those 6,300 noncitizens were found over the course of the last two and a half years, but such removals aren’t uncommon. In 2020, Virginia removed about 800 noncitizens from the rolls and about 500 were removed in 2019.
“Miyares didn’t mention the number of noncitizens actually voting in his video, but Mohamed Gula with the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights argues such omission is done on purpose.
“‘All over the country, people who want to create confusion and sow the seeds of doubt in the integrity of our electoral system are hiding behind false fears and overhyped claims of voter fraud,’ Gula told reporters in mid-October.
“His group is behind the lawsuit against Governor Glenn Youngkin’s recent voter purge executive order targeting alleged non-citizens. Reporting has shown the removal of legal citizens as part of the process.
“But Radio IQ’s review of over 650 cases of election-related crimes in Virginia’s state court system over the last 20 years found no instances of a noncitizen being convicted of voting illegally. Criminal prosecutions came from across the commonwealth; about 60 cases of illegally voting were found, but none involved citizenship status.”
Noncitizens have been barred from voting in federal elections since 1924. In addition, in 1996, Congress made noncitizen voting in federal elections a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment. Under federal laws, only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, and states are required to regularly update their voter rolls, or voter registration lists, to remove anyone ineligible.
The X post that triggered this latest wave of migrant voting misinformation used publicly available federal data from the Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) program, which shows the total number of times Texas, Pennsylvania and Arizona requested the Social Security Administration to verify a voter’s identity using their Social Security numbers.
Noncitizens with Social Security numbers are still banned from voting. A study of the 2016 election conducted by the Brennan Center the following year found “that of 23.5 million votes cast, election officials only found about 30 cases of potential noncitizen voting,” according to The Associated Press.
It’s really very simple:
There is/has been no proven case of non-citizen/recent immigrant voting that has changed election results in the United States and even recently documented and undocumented immigrants under Republican and Democratic administrations must endure years of waiting before they will be eligible to vote in the 2026 and 2028 federal elections.
While the idea dates to the philosopher Favorinus (c. 110 CE) and was popularized by the English poet Alexander Pope in his 1734 poem “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,” the phrase “damn with faint praise” seems appropriate when considering the “illegal immigrants are stealing or will steal our elections.”
“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.”
In his January 26, 2025 “Face the Nation” interview with host Margaret Brennan, Vice President JD Vance sneered with faint praise while damning the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic social teachings on Justice and loving and caring for strangers as taught in Sacred Scripture (Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34, Matthew 25:35, Acts 10:34, Romans 12:13, Hebrew 13:1, and 3John 1:5).
Vance told host Margaret Brennan:
“I think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in commonsense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better… And I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about the humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people.”
[EDITORS’ NOTE: OSV News (formerly Our Sunday Visitor) reported (“Vance spars with US bishops over their pushback on Trump’s immigration policy,” January 27, 2025. Maria Wiering):
“The USCCB is one of 10 national resettlement agencies that receive federal funding and partner with local organizations to assist refugee populations that qualify for federal assistance. Those populations include people resettled via the U.S. refugee admissions program, certain groups of vulnerable noncitizen children, and certain other groups such as victims of human trafficking and torture.”]
On February 23, the London-based The Catholic Herald (“Dolan speaks on refugee funding disagreement with Vance”) reported:
“Cardinal Timothy Dolan has said that United States Vice President JD Vance apologised to him after suggesting that Catholic bishops supported immigration for financial gain.
“The archbishop emeritus of New York made the remarks during an interview with EWTN on 20 February, when he was asked to comment on the vice president. Reflecting on their relationship, Cardinal Dolan said: ‘I’ve met him a number of times. He’s a very good guy. I enjoy him a lot. I agree with a bunch of the things he talks about. At times, though, I’ve said, ‘Uh-oh – can’t agree with you there.’
“He continued: ‘He and I had a little tête-à-tête, as you probably know, when he suggested that bishops in the United States were pro-immigrant because we were making money. I told him that was not only untrue – it was scurrilous. And he apologised. He said that was out of line, and that it wasn’t true.’”
As some politicians and their minions spend the coming months and years screaming to the high heavens about “illegal immigrants voting and stealing elections,” we point to The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1791) concerning “culpable ignorance”:
“This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man ‘takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.’ (Gaudium et Spes/The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council) In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.”
It’s much less complicated than the sex life of chopsticks: Failing to understand the realities of noncitizen voting and/or spreading the /hoax/lies about noncitizens voting is either willful ignorance – a primary condition of sin – or facilitating the sin of culpable ignorance.
"You shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free."
(John 8:32)