(NewsNation) — Eight states will ask voters to amend state constitutions this November to ban noncitizens from voting in elections despite it already being illegal under a federal ban.
Measures banning noncitizen voting will appear on ballots in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin on Election Day. If approved, these states will join seven other states with noncitizen voting bans.
Efforts to get bans on the ballots have been spearheaded by largely conservative lawmakers citing migrant crossings which they say could increase the possibility that noncitizens will vote, despite data reportedly showing this rarely happening. Voting bans started popping up around 2019, but have revved up in recent years with a record eight states that introduced measures this year.
The measures, in theory, would extend beyond a federal ban making it illegal for noncitizens to vote in even local elections, which is allowed in some municipalities.
Noncitizen voting in the spotlight
In various states, Republicans have launched reviews of voter rolls, issued executive orders and placed constitutional amendments on state ballots as part of an emphasis on thwarting noncitizen voting.
“American elections are for American citizens, and we intend to keep it that way,” House Administration Committee Chairman Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin said during a hearing he hosted on noncitizen voting in May.
Iowa GOP Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who supported the measure in her state said “Americans should decide American elections, not illegal immigrants,” in a social media post.
Some experts contend the measures could create hurdles for legal voters, are unnecessary and lead people to believe the problem of noncitizens voting is bigger than it is.
“These are solutions for a non-existent problem,” Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at San Francisco State University who focuses on noncitizen voting, told NewsNation.
These kinds of measures come about due to an “unfortunate perpetual myth that is continually being advanced that noncitizens are illegally voting, despite study after study by academics, and dozens of court cases, including by the former president, that has shown that there’s no evidence of this,” he said.
Many Democrats echo the sentiment.
“Federal law already states that a noncitizen cannot vote. It’s already a violation,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, said in a recording of the hearing posted on the committee website.
Are non-citizen voters allowed to vote?
Congress passed a law in 1996 that explicitly banned noncitizen voting in all federal elections.
Under the law, a noncitizen could face up to five years in prison simply for registering to vote. It’s also a deportable offense for noncitizens to register or vote.
Federal law also requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone who is ineligible.
No state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many have laws that outright prohibit voting in state elections.
However, 17 municipalities including in California, Maryland and Vermont, allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, according to Hayduk’s research.
Ten Maryland towns, three Vermont towns, and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, CA, New York City and the District of Columbia allow noncitizens to vote in local elections such as for school boards.
But as the issue of immigration became more entangled with voter fraud, several of these municipal laws have been challenged in court.
NYC’s law was struck down in court in 2024, and is pending a possible appeal. D.C.’s law survived a challenge in court in 2024, when a federal court sustained the district’s noncitizen immigrant voting rights law.
Why did these noncitizen bans start popping up?
There has been an uptick in laws aiming to explicitly ban noncitizens from voting in the last year largely due to a push by conservative groups citing election integrity despite any evidence of any fraud, Hayduk said.
These bills keep the myth alive that noncitizens are actually voting, and that these laws to ban them are necessary, he added.
Hayduk said that these efforts are being driven for several reasons including that they tend to mobilize conservative voters who are concerned about immigrants to show up at the polls.
“The message they [Republicans] are sending is that Joe Biden is secretly bringing in a hoard of migrant voters, that’s not true,” NewsNation political editor Chris Stirewalt said. “There isn’t such a thing that’s going on.”
“But the Republican base believes that.”
Some conservative lawmakers say the measure is more of a proactive stance.
“Individuals across the state are concerned with the electoral process, and they want to make sure that the votes counted are legal votes,” Jason Simmons, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, said reported Reuters.
These laws could actually hurt voters: Expert
While the measures are marketed as a way to make voting more secure, these kinds of laws can make it harder for legitimate voters to cast ballots, Hayduk said.
“These measures have a tendency to disenfranchise or make it very difficult for low-income individuals, people with lower levels of education, minority groups, urban voters, who tend to register and vote for Democrats,” he said.
Speaker Mike Johnson introduced a proposal that would have linked temporary funding for the federal government with a mandate that states require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.
The move failed but Johnson remained steadfast in his stance over apparent illegal voting.
“No matter where we are in the country, everybody understands that only U.S. citizens should vote in U.S. elections. This was our opportunity to both fund the government and ensure the security of the election,” Johnson said at a news conference referring to failed legislation that required proof of citizenship.
