Yes, Noncitizens Should be Barred from Voting

Democrats have in the Age of Trump positioned themselves as the champions and eternal defenders of democracy, waging an endless battle against imaginary autocrats who would use their power to keep themselves in power forever. So why is it that they keep doing things that are obviously designed to keep themselves in power forever?

Perhaps not trusting the will of the fickle American voter, Democrats have increasingly looked to noncitizens to give themselves a permanent majority. It’s no coincidence that the “pathway to citizenship” they support for the untold millions of illegal immigrants allowed into the country under the Biden-Harris also includes a “pathway to voting.” They want a new electoral base.

Even before the new Democratic electorate is naturalized, however, left-wing activists have pushed for noncitizens to be allowed to vote in state and local elections. Recognizing this, Republicans in Wisconsin have tried to head them off at the pass by placing a constitutional amendment referendum on the November ballot that asks voters: “Shall section 1 of article III of the constitution, which deals with suffrage, be amended to provide that only a United States citizen age 18 or older who resides in an election district may vote in an election for national, state, or local office or at a statewide or local referendum?”

As currently written, Article III, Section 1 provides that “every United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district.” The proposed amendment would essentially replace the word “every” with the word “only” to read “only United States citizens aged 18 or older who are residents of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district.”

This might seem like a distinction without a difference, but the subtle change in wording would bar future attempts to pass legislation allowing noncitizens to vote in Wisconsin’s elections. Article III, Section 1 currently has no prohibition on noncitizen voting and its current wording could theoretically allow for it since the only qualifications are that an elector be “age 18 or older” and a “resident of an election district in this state.”

Passage of the amendment would make Wisconsin the eighth state to explicitly prohibit noncitizen voting in its Constitution and serve as a bulwark against recent attempts at legalizing the practice. Six times since 2018 have states put a citizenship requirement for voting on the ballot, and all six times these measures have overwhelmingly passed with by an average 63%-37% margin. This November, eight states including Wisconsin have put up similar measures and there is no reason to believe their citizens will vote any differently.

Voting is under federal law a right granted only to American citizens, as 18 U.S. Code § 611 makes it “unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner.”

Far-left activists in deeply liberal cities, however, have in recent years been successful in approving noncitizen voting in municipal elections. San Francisco voters passed a charter amendment in 2016 that allowed for the practice and, following a seven-year legal battle, California’s state courts gave it final approval. In 2022, voters in Oakland and the Washington, DC Council also allowed for noncitizen voting with both actions taking effect the following year.

Vermont’s most populous city, Burlington, and its capital city of Montpelier as well as the smaller city of Winooski all passed charter amendments in recent years allowing for noncitizen voting and even though Governor Phil Scott vetoed all three, the Vermont Legislature overrode his vetoes, allowing the measures to take immediate effect.

In Maryland, 11 different municipalities have all passed ordinances allowing for noncitizen voting under a State Constitution that has citizenship language nearly identical to Wisconsin’s. Maryland’s Constitution, like Wisconsin’s, provides that “every citizen of the United States, of the age of 18 years or upwards, who is a resident of the State” may vote. Clearly, the concern that liberal activists in Wisconsin would also try to pass noncitizen voting in various municipalities is not unfounded.

Such a push would be motivated by a desire for political power and nothing more, since Democrats have long presumed that noncitizens would vote overwhelmingly for them if given the chance. Other than cementing one-party rule, though, there is no tangible benefit to noncitizen voting. Even opponents of Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment can offer only broad and baseless platitudes about how it “could weaken how voting rights are laid out in the state constitution” and “spur up harmful rhetoric toward immigrants.”

Neither of these will come to pass, of course, but the amendment’s opponents are concerned that a clear and decisive rejection of noncitizen voting will end their efforts at ensuring future Democrat victories.

That is reason enough vote “yes” this November.