Kennedy should have participated in the debate – and states need ranked voting

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Legislation advancing through Congress would ban non-U.S. citizens from voting in elections, including elections for public office, ballot initiatives and referendums, in the District of Columbia. The bill would also repeal the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, which had granted voting rights to non-U.S. residents of D.C. The bill seeks to restore the previous voting system, under which only U.S. citizens could participate in D.C. elections.

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It is notable that non-citizens are already barred from voting in federal elections under current law; this bill would only ban their participation in local elections, such as mayor, school board, and city council. It is also important to note that a non-citizen is not the same as an illegal or undocumented immigrant, as many legal temporary and permanent residents do not have full citizenship status.

Read IssueVoter’s analysis of HR 192 here.

What is the history of the bill?

After first being introduced in October 2022 by Texas Rep. August Pfluger (R), hour 9172died silently in committee. He claimed that the bill was made necessary by a “nearly unanimous vote by the DC City Council to introduce a bill that would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections — even if they have only lived in DC for 30 days.” He continued: “If you are in the United States illegally, you do not have the right to vote — period. Liberals in Washington, DC who want to allow non-citizens to vote are jeopardizing the integrity of our election system.”

He was referring to the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, which passed in October 2022. Because of its non-state status, D.C. must send all of its legislation to Congress for review before it is passed, and Congress can pass a continuing resolution (which must be signed by the president) to block a bill. In this case, according to BallotpediaThe bill overcame bipartisan opposition and passed in March 2023, but was ultimately sued by seven Washington, D.C., voters who claimed they would be unfairly discriminated against if the law were to become law.

In March 2024, the case was ultimately dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The court found that the plaintiffs’ votes “will not be given less weight or treated differently than the votes of noncitizens; they will not lose representation in any legislative body; nor will citizens as a group have been discriminatorily manipulated, ‘packed,’ or ‘split’ so as to divide, concentrate, or devalue their votes.”

This statement undoubtedly prompted Pfluger’s bill to be revived. He reintroduced it as HR 192 in January 2023, but it too languished in committee until May 2024, when it was finally heard and then quickly passed by the House. Fifty-two Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the bill, giving it a healthy 262-143 majority. It now sits in committee in the Senate.

In which state are non-citizens allowed to vote in the United States?

It’s hard to know exactly how many noncitizens live in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, there were more than 25 million people who lived in the US in 2020 and were not citizens. This included approximately 12 million permanent residents who have legal permission to live in the country, and 2 million temporary residents who visit the U.S. for a period of time as students, tourists, foreign workers, foreign officials, etc. Pew’s figure also includes about 11 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. But how many of them are allowed to vote?

This extensive Ballotpedia analysis shows that there is a long history of legal voting by noncitizens. In fact, 33 states allowed it between 1776 and 1924. As American attitudes toward immigration changed, however, more and more states changed their constitutions to prevent noncitizen voting.

Currently, D.C. and certain municipalities in California, Maryland, and Vermont allow noncitizens to vote in some or all local elections. Seven states explicitly prohibit noncitizen voting, and another 12 states do not impose barriers for municipalities to adopt their own voter qualification laws. Federal law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The law imposes a penalty of up to one year in prison for violators and makes them ineligible for a visa, ineligible for admission to the U.S., and deportable.

People in the US illegally should not be allowed to vote

Proponents of hour 9172 cite immigration concerns as the main reason the bill is needed. Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) warned, “Because of the wide open border that the Biden administration has refused to close — in fact, they designed to open — we now have so many noncitizens in the country that if just one in 100 of them voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes.” He further argued that because of the narrow margins in swing state districts, it could determine the outcome of congressional and presidential elections.

Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) puts it this way: “American elections are for American citizens. And we intend to keep it that way.” He also argues that allowing noncitizens to vote, even in local elections, makes it difficult for states to maintain clean voter registration rolls, and suggests that it could be confusing even for noncitizens about which elections they are allowed to vote in and which they are not.

A solution to a problem that doesn’t exist?

Opponents are clear that the bill is simply an attempt to undermine confidence in American elections. The League of Women Voters states: “This is just another attempt to spread misinformation about our democratic systems and sow distrust in our elections.” The National Immigration Forum points out that strict laws prohibiting non-citizen voting in federal elections have been in place for more than 100 years, and that only a handful of states allow very limited non-citizen voting.

Jose Barrios, who leads the DC Latino Caucus (a Democratic group advocating for the DC Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act), said the group’s support for the bill was based on a basic premise: that all people affected by local laws “should have a voice in who makes those laws.”

Non-citizens pay taxes, run businesses, and send their children to public schools, he saidHe described the argument that allowing non-citizens to vote would “dilute” the votes of American citizens as a reflection of efforts throughout history to block the expansion of suffrage to various demographic groups.

Vote on the ballot paper?

It remains to be seen whether the bill will make further progress in a Democratic-controlled Senate. But given the plethora of other voting-related legislation being introduced across the U.S., and a highly contested election looming in November, we can be sure that voting rights and the integrity of American elections will remain a hot topic for some time to come.