By Britain Eakin ·
Law360 (November 6, 2024, 3:26 AM EST) –Voters across eight states approved Republican-backed ballot measures to amend state constitutions to bar noncitizens from voting in state and local elections.
The measures appeared on ballots in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
While noncitizens are not permitted to vote in federal elections, more than a dozen cities in California, Maryland, Vermont and Washington, D.C., have permitted noncitizens to vote in local elections such as school board elections. Santa Ana, California, rejected a bid to join their ranks with a Tuesday ballot measure to allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, found 30 instances of noncitizens voting in the 2016 general election. The Bipartisan Policy Center found 77 instances of noncitizens voting between 1999 and 2023 in its analysis of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation’s election fraud cases database.
Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio have already amended their constitutions to explicitly prohibit noncitizens from voting in state and local elections.
Here are the vote counts for the citizenship measures on the 2024 federal election ballots as of 5:45 a.m. EST:
Idaho House Joint Resolution 5
Yes: 64.7%
No: 35.3%
House Joint Resolution 5 proposed amending the Idaho Constitution to clarify that only state residents who are U.S. citizens can vote in any state election, changing current language that “every male or female citizen of the” U.S. can vote. HJR 5 proposed adding the qualifying statement that “no person who is not a citizen of the United States shall be a qualified elector in any election held within the state.”
Iowa Amendment 1
Yes: 75.9%
No: 24.1%
Amendment 1 required registered voters to be U.S. citizens to vote in elections. It called for updating the state constitution to say “only” U.S. citizens can vote, a change from the current language stipulating that “every” U.S. citizen can vote. It also called for allowing 17-year-olds who would turn 18 by the time of the general election to vote in primaries.
Kentucky Constitutional Amendment 1
Yes: 62.4%
No: 37.6%
Constitutional Amendment 1 asked voters to amend the Kentucky Constitution to specify “no person who is not a citizen of the United States shall be allowed to vote in this state,” changing current language that “every” 18-year-old U.S. citizen who has lived in the state for at least one year is eligible to vote.
Missouri Amendment 7
Yes: 68.4%
No: 31.6%
Amendment 7 required Missouri’s state constitution to be updated to say “only citizens” of the U.S. are eligible to vote, a change from existing language that “any citizen of the United States” who is 18 or older can vote. The proposal also prohibited ranked-choice voting.
North Carolina Citizenship Requirement for Voting Amendment
Yes: 77.6%
No: 22.4%
The citizenship requirement for voting amendment proposed altering the North Carolina Constitution to specify that “only” U.S. citizens who are 18 or older can vote, tweaking the current language, which states “every person born in the” U.S. and “every person who has been naturalized” can vote.
Oklahoma State Question 834
Yes: 80.7%
No: 19.3%
State question 834 proposed changing a single word in the Oklahoma Constitution to make clear that “only” U.S. citizens are eligible to vote, a change from previous language that “all” U.S. citizens can vote.
South Carolina Amendment 1
Yes: 86%
No: 14.1%
The citizenship requirement for voting amendment proposed changing South Carolina’s constitution to specify that “only” U.S. citizens, 18 years of age or older, can vote, a shift from language stating that “every” U.S. citizen can vote.
Wisconsin Citizenship Voting Requirement Amendment
Yes: 70.5%
No: 29.5%
The proposal suggested altering the Wisconsin Constitution to designate that “only” those who are 18 and older and U.S. citizens are eligible to vote, clarifying current language that “every” U.S. citizen can vote.
–Editing by Lakshna Mehta.