Old North News

The North Carolina General Assembly has an opportunity this year to ward off a campaign by the Left that would give noncitizens the right to vote.

The House and Senate bills (HB 1074/SB 630) would amend the state Constitution to clarify that noncitizens do not have voting rights; the current provision states that no eligible voter can be denied the right to vote, but doesn’t specifically forbid noncitizens from voting.

Lawmakers are scheduled to recess for the summer on June 30, but Dr. Andy Jackson, Director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity, John Locke Foundation, who has written extensively on voting rights, told Old North News that lawmakers are likely to work overtime and meet into late summer.

“Support for the bill House is solid but the Senate is the bigger hurdle,” said Jackson.

If approved by a three-fifths vote in each chamber, the question would go before the voters in November where Jackson is confident it would be approved with ease. Measures in other states to ban noncitizens from voting have been approved by large margins.

Current state law bans noncitizens from voting but Jackson said that even though it’s a felony to lie on a voter registration form about the status of your citizenship, it’s difficult to enforce. And he said a constitutional amendment was needed as a preventative measure from a judicial override of the law. 

“An activist judge could sweep the law away and give local governments the authority to allow non-citizens to vote,” Jackson said. “But if this amendment passes even an activist judge won’t be able to get around it.”

It’s not an idle threat.

In a recent post on the John Locke website, Jackson noted that in March, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit trying to stop Washington, D.C.’s drive to grant voting rights to noncitizens.

“Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias’ organization called that decision a ‘victory’ for ‘noncitizen residents who will still be able to have their voices heard,’” Jackson wrote.

In addition, during an U.S. Senate Judiciary hearing in March on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, not one of the three witnesses called by Democrats was willing to go on the record and say that only citizens should have the right to vote in federal elections.

“The deniers included representatives of prominent organizations on the Left, such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the American Civil Liberties Union,” Jackson said.

Currently, 16 cities and towns in California, Maryland, and Vermont allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections.  

In 2021, the New York City Council approved a measure allowing noncitizens to vote, but in 2022 the state’s Supreme Court struck it down. 

The campaign to give noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, full rights and privileges is ongoing.