Ignorant, Illiterate and Illegitimate Voters

From: Richard Schramm [mailto:richard.schramm@comcast.net]
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 11:12 PM
Subject: Ignorant, Illiterate and Illegitimate Voters

Tom,

I saw you speak on one of the news shows. It might have been Fox. I'm confused by something you said; that illegal immigrants who can't spell were responsible for putting our President in office. I'm not disputing your comment about illegal aliens. Of course they should not be allowed to vote. My questions mainly focus on the 10M difference between McCain and Obama, but one addresses the other 118M who voted in the 2008 election. Please understand that my questions are based on a portion of what I heard on the news and I may have misheard you or, taken the sound byte out of context. I would appreciate your candid answers so that I can accurately understand your position.

1. Are you suggesting that the 10M million vote spread between McCain and Obama was predominately made up of of illegal aliens? 

2. Are you suggesting that the bulk of the spread between McCain and Obama (10M) was comprised primarily of illiterate voters?

3. Are you saying that the number of illegitimate votes cast (those made by illegal aliens) equals 2M voters per state?

4. Are you asserting that all of the other voters (118M,  59M who voted for McCain and 59 who voted for our President, minus the 10M spread) were all literate and could spell?

I respect your right to have your opinion and as I said, I agree that illegal aliens should not be allowed to vote. With that said,  if I understood you correctly, you have put forth a statistical impossibility.

As you know, perhaps from your family upbringing, not all legal immigrants can read or understand English fluently, even though they manage to pass a test to obtain citizenship. In 2000 there were over 15M functioning illiterate Americans. For reference, a functionally illiterate person may understand the words cat, dog, perhaps even vote, but cannot read well enough to understand the things they must read in order to get by in daily life, such as job advertisements, past-due notices, newspaper articles, complex signs and posters etc. I think it's safe to say this would include voting instructions and most certainly, the ability to clearly understand the issues differentiating the candidates. In other words, they have no idea what they are voting for. Which begs the question; should legitimate citizens be required to take a similar test? Simply put, the numbers (which form the basis of your assertion)  simply don't add up.

If I did hear you correctly then sadly, only those who lack intelligence, similar to the illegal aliens you took issue with, would believe your assertion(s) could be legitimate, much less possible.

Still, out of respect, I'll ask you to clarify your position.

Regards,

Richard Schramm