RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 “Don’t Let the Illegals Vote!”: The Myths of Illegal Latino Voters and Voter Fraud in Contested Local Immigrant Integration JF RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences FD Russell Sage Foundation SP 148 OP 175 DO 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.09 VO 3 IS 4 A1 Robert Courtney Smith YR 2017 UL http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/3/4/148.abstract AB This paper analyzes how the belief and fear by mostly older, white voters, politicians, and poll workers that “illegal” Latino immigrants were seeking to vote in local elections led to stigmatization of and discrimination against some Latino citizen voters in Port Chester, New York. Stoked by and closely echoing national voter ID law rhetoric, this fear fueled an “illegal Latino voter threat” narrative. This article documents how Port Chester’s leaders and citizens repeated this narrative in public life, sometimes enacting it in politics, including in voting. The resultant stigma denies Latino voters the presumed legitimacy other citizens enjoy, discrediting them in one word: illegal. Such processes harm democracy in Port Chester and America, and were on display in the 2016 presidential election.