States overwhelmingly approve noncitizen voting bans
Voters file into an Arizona polling place on Election Day. Olivier Touron via Getty Images
Voters in all eight states approved constitutional amendments with at least 60% of the vote, even as experts and state leaders say the issue is exceedingly rare.
Voters in eight states overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendments to explicitly ban noncitizens from voting in elections, even as experts say the problem is overblown.
Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin all voted in favor of their respective measures, which involve either adding new language or strengthening existing language around noncitizen voting. Every state’s ballot initiative received at least 60% of the vote. The biggest margin of victory came in South Carolina, where 85% of voters approved the measure.
Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, as do seven states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio.
Republicans had made noncitizen voting a key part of their 2024 messaging strategy, as they cited an influx of immigrants in recent years at the U.S.-Mexico border and worried those immigrants might try to vote. The Republican National Committee had spent millions on advertising to discourage noncitizen voters in the last month.
Supporters said they were vindicated by the large margins of victory.
“The people and political entities who have voiced opposition to these amendments have done so through misinformation and deceit,” Avi McCullah, president of Americans for Citizen Voting, which lobbied for the amendment questions, said in an email. “Noncitizen voting is happening. Anybody who says that it isn’t is either ignorant or lying.”
Experts have said previously that noncitizen voting is not much of an issue. In 2017, the Brennan Center for Justice referred for investigation or prosecution only 30 estimated incidents of suspected noncitizen voting across 42 jurisdictions that oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes.
The Bipartisan Policy Center went further, and found earlier this year that, based on an analysis of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Cases database, there were only 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023.
The election campaign and the renewed emphasis on noncitizen voting prompted several states to look at their voter rolls and make splashy moves.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found just 20 noncitizens registered to vote out of 8.2 million on the state’s voter rolls, something he said at an October press conference showed the state as a “model when it comes to preventing noncitizen voting.”
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said that same month his office found 87 noncitizens who voted in state elections, and another 67 noncitizens who are registered to vote but had not yet done so. A federal judge also ruled that the state can keep challenging the validity of hundreds of ballots cast by potential noncitizens.
And the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Virginia to keep removing suspected noncitizens from its voter rolls, even as the lower courts, the Biden administration and various interest groups argued the act by Gov. Glenn Youngkin violated a provision of the National Voter Registration Act that prevents such purges within 90 days of a federal election.
Meanwhile, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit announced charges in late October against a noncitizen for registering to vote and then voting in this year’s election.
"Noncitizen voting is an extremely isolated and rare event,” the pair said in a statement. “Investigations in multiple states and nationwide have found no evidence of large numbers of noncitizens registering to vote. Even less common is a noncitizen actually casting a ballot. When it does happen, we take it extremely seriously. Our elections are secure and Michigan’s state and local election officials carefully follow the law.”
For legislators, these amendments help prevent future issues, especially if more cities were to decide they want noncitizens to vote. Some cities in California, Maryland and Vermont allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, as does Washington, D.C. Oklahoma State Sen. Shane Jett, a Republican, told the Oklahoma Voice that it means “no one can color outside the lines.”
While these states have joined a growing list of those that ban noncitizen voting, the effort could always be subject to a renewed federal push, especially when President-elect Donald Trump retakes office in January. House lawmakers pushed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act earlier this year and tried to attach it to must-pass spending legislation. State leaders said federal help could be key in cracking down once and for all.
“Florida needs the assistance and cooperation of the federal government to properly verify the citizenship status of persons in the United States,” Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd testified before a House subcommittee this year. “The federal government has plenary authority over who becomes a naturalized citizen and is the only source for citizenship status verification. The challenge states face is that there is not a federal legal status database that is current and reliable.”