Noncitizens are not voting in massive numbers, and our elections are secure

Suppose you were to believe the narrative from certain candidates, social media, high-profile lawsuits, and numerous ballot initiatives this year. In that case, you might think that noncitizen voting is a major problem. As with most issues these days, the facts are obscured in favor of false narratives aimed at stirring up a frenzy, reports The Washington Monthly.

But facts should matter: Noncitizens are not voting in massive numbers, and our elections are secure.

That reality has not stopped those who sow divisiveness and undermine people’s confidence in our elections. The false narrative can also create negative changes in the law that undermine the constitutional protection for the right to vote. We must disseminate the truth so that the American public can distinguish fact from myth.

Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Several state laws forbid it as well. From a practical perspective, it is unlikely that noncitizens will flout these laws purposefully and vote en masse, as they will probably be caught and face both criminal and immigration consequences.

It is true that sometimes, noncitizens mistakenly appear on voter registration lists, usually because they validly obtain a driver’s license, and the lists are copied over to the voter registration database. States routinely audit those lists to remove ineligible voters. And reports of noncitizens on the rolls are almost always inflated. For example, Texas officials likely embellished the number of noncitizens it purged from its voter rolls; news organizations found that the number Texas cited almost certainly included valid U.S. citizens. Alabama’s Secretary of State admitted that his initial allegation of 3,200 noncitizens on the voter rolls was massively wrong—at least 2,000 of the people he flagged were citizens. Of course, people often don’t hear the correction; they only focus on the initial claim.

In 2022, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced he was referring for investigation 1,634 cases of potential noncitizens attempting to register between 1997 and 2022—a paltry number given the millions of valid Georgia voters. None of those people voted because of the various safeguards in place. Raffensperger noted, “The audit proved that Georgia’s citizenship check procedures are working and are vital to ensuring secure elections.”

Moreover, state and local election officials routinely perform post-election audits to verify the results. They have also specifically looked for noncitizen voting and found hardly any instances of it. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation lists only 21 cases of ineligible voting in its entire “election fraud” database. Numerous other studies also show that noncitizen voting is minuscule.

But the claims persist. A recent survey found that 67 percent of respondents said they encountered information on social media about noncitizen voting, with 77 percent of Republicans reporting that they had seen this content, compared to 63 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independents who saw it. These false claims will likely be part of any post-election attempt to sow seeds of doubt about the election’s outcome. Maybe that’s the whole point,

Some states have attempted aggressive purges of their voter rolls, only to end up in court. The Department of Justice, for example, was forced to sue Alabama and Virginia for trying to flag potential noncitizens in their rolls too close to the election. Florida sued the federal government, alleging that the Department of Homeland Security had not provided the requisite information for Florida to review its voter registration list. But creating this kind of dispute so close to the election—during the 90 days before Election Day when federal law prohibits voter purges—does little but sow doubt about the voting process. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida wants to add further uncertainty by introducing a bill that would let states remove noncitizens from the rolls at any time.

Meanwhile, eight states (Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin) will vote on ballot initiatives to amend their state constitutions to prohibit noncitizens from voting. These initiatives follow similar measures that passed in 2020 and 2022 in six states—Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio. The Arizona Constitution also prohibits noncitizens from voting.

The ballot propositions will impose a very minor change in the constitutional language.

Virtually every state’s constitution before 2020 said that “every” citizen shall be entitled to vote. The amendments alter that language to “only a citizen” may vote. But the change is not mere semantics. State constitutions provide much stronger protection for the right to vote than does the U.S. Constitution, especially given the restrictive rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court. Changing the language of state constitutions will water down these vital sources of protection. Already, some state judges are reluctant to apply their state constitutions robustly, preferring instead to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s lead—even though state constitutions textually and explicitly confer broader rights. Narrowing the protection of state constitutions will give these judges even further reason not to construe their state constitutions as more protective of voters. Refusing to apply the state constitution properly leads to deference to state politicians, who often craft voting rules to help keep themselves in power.

If passed, these “noncitizen voting” ballot propositions will also forbid localities in these states from allowing noncitizens to vote in local or school board elections. A few cities in California, Maryland, and Vermont currently—and legally—let noncitizens vote in these municipal elections. New York City also passed a similar ordinance, but it has been held up in court.

A state constitution that says “every” citizen may vote does not necessarily preclude a locality from legally adding noncitizens to the voter rolls for local elections, as the state constitution is a floor, not a ceiling, of voter eligibility. A change in the state constitutional language to say that “only” a citizen may vote in any elections in the state would outlaw that practice by imposing a strict limitation for all elections. We can debate whether it’s a good idea to let noncitizens vote in local elections, though the idea of federalism would suggest that it really should be up to each city to decide for itself. Moreover, many states considering these ballot propositions already have state statutes that forbid noncitizens from voting in any election, so the constitutional change will have no legal effect. The propositions instead are a solution in search of a problem.

They also create their own problem: fostering the false claim that noncitizen voting is happening. It is not. Perhaps, instead of chasing the boogeyman of noncitizen voting, our elected leaders should focus on improving turnout among the U.S. citizens who routinely do not vote. After all, even in the best years, about one-third of eligible voters do not cast a ballot. If they participate, millions of nonvoters could fundamentally alter our elections. A few noncitizens who might mistakenly end up on the voter registration lists and almost never vote have little effect.

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