They’re banning what’s already banned
As closely as I monitor these things, this one slipped by me (Center for Media and Democracy):
Eight states will vote to amend their state constitutions in November to ban noncitizens from voting in elections. If these amendments pass in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, it will bring the total number of states with constitutions specifying only citizens are allowed to vote to 20.
The little known dark money group Americans for Citizens Voting (ACV) is backing and tracking the effort. Since 2018, voters in six states have added the amendment to their state constitutions.
ACV has its eyes locked on another 11 states in 2025: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, according to its website.
ACV has enlisted the help of the pay-to-play American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to move a model state constitution amendment in these states and others to ban noncitizens from voting in elections.
It is already illegal for green card holders or undocumented immigrants to vote in federal and state elections in all states, but ALEC’s “Citizen Only Voting Amendment” would extend the voting prohibition to elections at all levels of government.
This is despite the fact that evidence of noncitizen voting is scarce. “Every legitimate study ever done on the question shows that voting by noncitizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare,” the Brennan Center reported. As the nonpartisan law and policy institute points out, even the Charles Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute determined that “noncitizens don’t illegally vote in detectable numbers.”
Progressive advocacy groups place abortion rights amendments on state ballots to both restore women’s bodily autonomy and incentivize turnout. So I supposed it’s not surprising that conservative dark money groups goose their xenophobic base with amendments to outlaw non-citizen voting that’s already outlawed.
Axios reported on North Carolina’s proposed amendment in July:
Between the lines: Already, only citizens are allowed to vote in North Carolina, and whether or not a majority of voters approve the amendment in November won’t change that.
Still, the GOP framing of the border crisis has hit home with Republicans and Democrats alike and could give them a leg up at the ballot box this year.
- A growing number of Americans say they want to see immigration decreased, as a record number of migrants have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border under the Biden administration.
Meanwhile, former President Trump has claimed that waves of illegal immigrants are voting in our elections, though there’s no evidence to support that.
But absence of evidence for your conspiracy theory is not evidence of absence, amirite?