© Josh Edelson/SFP/Getty ImagesSan Francisco City Hall
Litigation in Vermont has highlighted the expanding trend of noncitizen voting, which two cities in that state recently allowed. Municipalities in California and Maryland similarly allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Other jurisdictions are considering doing so.
So far, these efforts to allow noncitizens to vote don't apply to national elections for president or Congress, nor to state offices such as governor or state legislator. For Democrats especially, though,
this has been an emerging issue.In July,
The New York Times published an essay by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, a senior editor at
The Nation, under the headline "There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote."
Congress passed legislation in 1996 to prohibit noncitizens from voting in federal elections. State constitutions vary, although so far the idea has been entirely a local matter. It has been more popular in local jurisdictions of some states than in others. Local laws giving the vote to noncitizens also vary. Some apply only to legal residents, such as green card holders. Others apply to illegal immigrants as well.
In a 2017 article, Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky, identified
14 states that don't explicitly prohibit local governments from making noncitizens eligible to vote: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin.
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