That's the latest conventional wisdom from presidential poll watchers. But it may not be legal American citizens in my adopted home state who choose the next commander in chief.

Instead, it could very well be foreign noncitizens voting illegally in the Rocky Mountains—and in other crucial swing states—who seal our country's fate.

Former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler identified nearly 5,000 noncitizens in Colorado who voted in the 2010 general election. Gessler's office uncovered upwards of 12,000 noncitizens registered to vote. Liberal groups who oppose stronger election system protections attacked him for trying to verify citizenship status—because God forbid public officials sworn to uphold the rule of law actually do anything to enhance the integrity of our election system!

Compounding the problem: The militant immigration expansionist group Mi Familia Vota, connected with the Service Employees International Union, has ramped up its efforts in swing states to facilitate naturalization and registration of Latino voters who will promote the open-borders agenda at the polls.

Another rare defender of American sovereignty, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, fought in court for his state's right to require citizenship documents from people who register to vote at motor vehicle offices. Last month, a federal appeals court struck down the Kansas law despite the U.S. Constitution's conferral of responsibility for determining who may vote to states.

In a scene straight out of "Alice in Wonderland," Kobach faced a contempt hearing for battling against those who hold contempt for truly free and fair elections. He was forced to sign an agreement with the ACLU allowing more than 18,000 motor-voter registrants to cast ballots this November while litigation continues.

Last year, undercover investigative journalist James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas team blew the whistle on North Carolina political operatives who encouraged people to vote even if they were noncitizens. Like Kobach, O'Keefe endures attacks on his efforts to ensure clean elections by grievance-mongers screaming about phony voter "disenfranchisement." Never mind that a nonpartisan study in 2014 from Old Dominion University concluded "that 6.4 percent of noncitizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of noncitizens voted in 2010."[PDF]

Put on your shocked faces: These illegal noncitizen voters overwhelmingly supported Democrats. And their votes were enough to tilt the presidential election results in North Carolina to President Obama, along with handing over "Democratic victories in congressional races including a critical 2008 Senate race (Al Franken's victory in Minnesota) that delivered for Democrats a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate."

The ACLU and other left-wing groups sabotaging voter integrity laws see no voter fraud, hear no voter fraud and speak no voter fraud. Thanks to their efforts, voter ID laws have been tossed in Texas, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Committed to flooding the voting rolls with every last potential Democrat constituent, their operational motto is: No unqualified voter left behind.

But J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department election lawyer in the Voting Rights Section, has exposed the systemic assault on the election process at every level by activist groups funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, including:

Blocking citizenship verification.

Automatic voter registration of welfare recipients without local verification checks.

Massive foreign language ballot expansion.

Obstruction of efforts to include state qualification instructions on voter registration forms.

This past week, the Public Interest Law Foundation uncovered thousands of foreign aliens registered to vote in swing states Virginia and Pennsylvania thanks to the federal Motor Voter law. [ PDF ]It's the tip of the iceberg because the studies include just a small sample of counties.

Oh, Virginia voters, you'll be thrilled to know that your top election officials are now trying to cover up the true extent of the scandal. PILF noted that the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections issued a written guidance to local election officials instructing them "not to respond to our requests for records pertaining to non-citizen voters."

In Pennsylvania, election officials are so apathetic and incompetent that even when aliens begged to get off the voter rolls because they had never registered to vote in the first place, they were ignored.

Catherine Engelbrecht of election integrity activist group True the Vote is right: "Just voting isn't enough."

Keeping this republic depends on the vigilance of citizens committed to an almost impossible task these days: Making American elections American again.

Michelle Malkin is a senior editor at Conservative Review. For more articles and videos from Michelle, visit ConservativeReview.com.

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Michelle Malkin [email her] is the author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin is also author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies, and Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs.

Her latest book is SOLD OUT: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America’s Best & Brightest Workers