Democratic representative Loretta Sanchez recently criticized Republicans for suggesting that President Obama’s amnesty plan might lead to illegal voting by non-citizens. The irony here is shocking, considering how Ms. Sanchez managed to win her first election to Congress.

At the Feb. 12 press conference convened by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Orange County congresswoman declared that any and all concerns about non-citizen voting “are just red flags that people who are against immigrant communities are using to scare America.” In Sanchez’s first run for Congress, however, illegal votes were more than “just red flags”: Hundreds of non-citizens cast illegal ballots in a race that she won by fewer than 1,000 votes.

The press conference was held in reaction to a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that took place the same day. The Committee was looking into the question of whether President’s Obama amnesty plan for five million illegal aliens will exacerbate the problem of illegal, non-citizen voting.

I testified at that hearing (you can read my testimony here), along with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Ohio Secretary of State John Husted. Husted had sent a letter to President Obama at the end of January, expressing his concern that the DHS plan to give Social Security numbers and work authorizations to illegal aliens who receive “deferred action” would, in turn, allow those aliens to receive state driver’s licenses. As Husted pointed out, “by enabling millions of non-citizens to access valid forms of the types of identification required to register to vote, the recent executive actions have increased the risk that non-citizens may illegally register to vote and vote in our elections.”

At the CHC’s press conference, a reporter asked Sanchez whether it is a “legitimate concern” that the “president’s executive actions are creating new loopholes for illegal immigrants to vote.” Rep. Sanchez dismissed this out of hand, claiming that the “last thing on their mind is fraud and votes.”

But fraud and votes were very much front and center when Loretta Sanchez beat incumbent Republican Rep. Bob Dornan back in 1996. Indeed, the very same House committee wound up investigating that election and issuing an extensive report on its findings.

As John Fund and I outlined in Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk, the House Oversight Committee found “clear and convincing” evidence that 624 non-citizens had voted illegally in the election, and “circumstantial” evidence of another 196 non-citizen votes, as well as 124 improper absentee ballots. Sanchez still won the election, but just barely. And since the House Committee was comparing the voter registration list to INS records, it could not pick up non-citizens who weren’t in the INS database. As the Committee asked, “how many illegal or undocumented aliens may be registered to vote in Orange County?” We will never know.

Things in California have only gotten worse since then. The state has one of the largest populations of non-citizens, many of them illegal, and it has one of the worst run, most inaccurate voter registration lists in the country. The state does little to verify the accuracy of voter registration information received from applicants, and does not verify citizenship.

As the son of immigrants, I’m not against immigrant communities. I’m simply against allowing non-citizens to vote in our elections, stealing and diluting the votes of U.S. citizens. But according to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, we should not pay any attention to the man behind the voting booth curtain — even if he has no right to be there.

—​ Hans von Spakovsky is a former member of the Federal Election Commission, and a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.