WASHINGTON D.C. – The U.S. Justice Department has announced the successful deployment of a nationwide initiative to track down and prosecute noncitizen voters, a demographic so elusive it has consistently defied all attempts to prove its existence. Attorney General Merrick Garland lauded the effort as a critical defense of election integrity, despite acknowledging that the department's elite "Phantom Voter Task Force" has yet to locate a single phantom.
“This administration is committed to ensuring every eligible American citizen has their vote diluted by absolutely nothing at all,” stated Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a press conference that featured an empty evidence board. “Our intelligence suggests that if noncitizen voting *were* a widespread problem, we’d be finding it. The fact that we haven’t found it, after deploying resources equivalent to invading a small, hostile nation, simply proves how exceptionally good we are at stopping it before it even begins.” Monaco then introduced a new infographic depicting a negative number of fraudulent votes.
Election officials across 48 states, having received stern letters from the DOJ threatening legal action over hypothetical electoral vulnerabilities, expressed a mixture of confusion and mild awe. “We got a very official-looking letter implying we’re somehow harboring a secret army of illegal voters,” explained Brenda Jensen, a county clerk in rural Ohio. “Honestly, I was just trying to figure out how to get more people to vote, period. If there are secret noncitizen voters out there, they’re doing a better job staying hidden than the volunteers for the fall bake sale.”
Sources within the department, speaking on condition of anonymity because their jobs depend on fabricating threats, indicated that the current initiative is merely a precursor. “After we definitively prove that noncitizen voting isn’t happening, we’ll move on to tackling the equally pressing issue of time-traveling cyborgs from the future attempting to influence local school board elections,” one source whispered, carefully checking under his desk for any anachronistic chrome limbs. “It’s about showing the public we’re tough on… whatever it is we’re supposed to be tough on this week.”
The Justice Department confirmed it plans to host a national symposium next month celebrating the overwhelming success of its preventative measures against imaginary electoral threats, with keynote speeches from zero individuals impacted by zero crimes.
