Cerabino: Former 'Wife Swap' MAGA couple stokes immigrant fears with noncitizen ballot question

I have a modest proposal that would greatly improve the voting experience here in Florida.

Far too often, Sunshine State voters are barraged with constitutional amendments on the ballot that are thinly veiled appeals to stupidity.

These efforts ought to be punished. Simply voting “Yes” or “No” doesn’t go far enough. 

I would suggest a third voting option, such as “This ignorant, manipulative ploy is such an affront to voters that you ought to apologize publicly for putting it on the ballot, liquidate your secret-donor funds, donate them to a charity, and never waste the time of millions of voters in this way again.”

That’s an option I’d like to see for Amendment 1 on this November’s ballot.

The amendment titled “Citizen Requirement to Vote in Florida Elections” asks voters to approve a measure that says “only United States citizens” can vote in Florida elections.

I know what you’re thinking. Noncitizens can vote in Florida? No, of course they can’t.

Never have. Never will.

And whether you vote “yes” or “no” on this referendum will be as consequential as voting on whether the sun should rise in the east or west tomorrow morning.

This is nothing more than a frivolous exercise in fear-based bigotry. It’s theater aimed at cooking up resentment against immigrants to fix an imaginary problem they aren’t creating.

Limiting voting in Florida to citizens is already enshrined in both state and federal law.

The Florida Constitution already says: “Every citizen of the United States who is at least eighteen years of age and who is a permanent resident of the state, if registered as provided by law, shall be an elector of the county where registered.”

And the federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 already spelled out that noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections, and those who violate this law are subject to fines, imprisonment and deportation.

There’s no loophole to fix here. Somebody’s just wasting your time in service to a twisted, fear-based political strategy. 

In this case, it’s a shadowy dark-money-funded group called Florida Citizen Voters that is being fronted by former Missouri state legislator John Loudon and his radio talk-show-host wife, Gina. 

John’s previous voting conspiracy activism included furthering the reprehensible conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim ineligible to be president. 

Five years ago, Loudon referred to then President Obama as the “IslamChurian Candidate”, a reference to a movie in which a candidate becomes an assassin for an international conspiracy.

The Loudons went from tea-party activism to a short-lived career as reality TV stars on the show, “Wife Swap,” where they traded places with a polyamorous couple from New York. 

The Loudons then latched onto Donald Trump, serving as his delegates in the 2016 convention, then moving to Palm Beach County three years ago and joining Club Mar-a-Lago – grifter headquarters in Palm Beach County. 

Gina, who calls herself a member of Trump’s Media Advisory Board, wrote a book two years ago titled “Mad Politics: Keeping Your Sanity in a World Gone Crazy.” 

“My book actually uses science and real data and true psychological theory to explain why it is quite possible that this president is the most sound-minded person to ever occupy the White House,” she told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show two years ago.

“Gina is great!” Trump tweeted a week later, then followed up with a sales pitch for Loudon’s book.

“Go out and get your copy today – a great read!” Trump tweeted to his millions of followers.

The Trump-pandering constitutional amendment the Loudons are pushing is certainly not a great read. It’s an exercise that suggests to bigots and other low-information voters that fair elections are being compromised by noncitizens being allowed to vote.

Or as Trump once wildly claimed: “People get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on.”

The Florida voter referendum lives in that same fictional universe. 

“Surprisingly, the U.S. Constitution and every state constitution, with the exception of Arizona and North Dakota, does not specifically require citizenship to vote,” John Loudon wrote. “Each of these state constitutions say nearly the same thing: “Every citizen shall be an elector … ”

“This inclusive language tells us who can vote, but not who can’t vote,” Loudon continued. “That’s why we need the Citizen Voters Amendment.”

Loudon claims this is already a problem.

“There is controversy about the extent to which noncitizens are already voting illegally,” he wrote. 

No, there’s not.

"There’s zero evidence of even dozens, let alone millions, of noncitizens voting in this or any other election," David Becker, the executive director of the election-monitoring Center for Election Innovation & Research, said after the last midterm elections.

The legally shielded secret contributors to Florida Citizen Voters raised $8.2 million to help get more than 1.5 million Florida voters to sign petitions asking that this measure be included on the ballot.

And a poll done last year by St. Leo University Polling Institute showed that 80 percent of Floridians polled were in favor of this amendment.

Which doesn’t change the fact that voting for or against it won’t change a thing, or that it’s based in bigoted, fear-based politics that demonize immigrants by making them the source of imaginary threats to our country. 

That’s why, for me, voting “No” on this doesn’t quite go far enough.

fcerabino@pbpost.com

@FranklyFlorida

Listen to today's top stories from The Palm Beach Post: