Kansas City could enact rules for local elections that would allow non-American citizens the ability to vote.
That doesn’t mean Missouri’s largest city has plans to do that. But state law gives any city with a population of more than 400,000 the right to regulate its own elections.
“Thus, Kansas City, the only Missouri city with a population that high, may enact rules for its local elections that go beyond state voter qualifications,” University of Kentucky professor Joshua Douglas wrote in 2017 in “The Right To Vote Under Local Law.”
Douglas
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Douglas, who teaches and researches election law and voting rights, says that still holds true today.
“There appear to be no obvious impediments to that,” Douglas told The St. Louis Record.
But that could change if Amendment 7 is passed by Missouri voters this fall.
If passed, the amendment would change the Missouri Constitution to allow only citizens of the United States to vote in all state elections. It also would ban ranked-choice voting and require the plurality winner of a party’s primary election to be the single candidate in the general election.
Regarding citizen-only voting, proponents of passing Amendment 7 say the change would protect the integrity of elections by making it consistent with state law by only allowing U.S. citizens to vote. It would do so by amending Section 2 by changing to word “All” to “Only” citizens of the United States.
They say federal law requires citizenship to vote in a federal election, but the law does not apply to state and local elections. So unless a state’s constitution specifically states that only citizens can vote, proponents say the possibility of non-citizens legally voting exists. They also say the U.S. Constitution never extends the right to vote to noncitizens, calling voting a fundamental right of citizenship and noting that four amendments to the U.S. Constitution specifically recognize and protect this right, guaranteeing it to citizens of all races and genders and economic means.
A recent poll shows overwhelming support for Amendment 7, which also is known as the Only Citizens Vote and Only Vote Once Amendment.
The polling by Public Opinion Strategies shows support for Amendment 7 by a 2 to 1 margin (68% to 28%) with 81% percent of those polled being in favor of making Missouri’s Constitution consistent with state law by only allowing citizens of the United States to vote.
Bans on non-citizen voting at the state level have become more frequent since in recent years.
Voters in six states approved ballot measures banning noncitizen voting from 2018 to 2022. This year, Missouri and seven other states have these constitutional amendments on the ballot. The other states are Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
In recent years, city councils in New York, Washington and three cities in Vermont have voted to legalize foreign citizen voting. They join cities in California, Illinois and Maryland that, because of language in their state constitutions, also allow foreign citizens to vote.
“Most state constitutions do not specifically prohibit foreign citizen voting,” Americans for Citizen Voting President Ava McCullah recently told The Record. “Many people, even legislators, are unaware of this fact.”
Douglas did not that of the communities that do allow noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections, none of them are large cities. He said New York City previously allowed noncitizens to vote in city elections, but a law was passed changing that a few years ago. However, that law has been held up in courts.
He also said none of these places where non-citizens can vote in municipal elections have had these types of ballot initiatives. He also noted that the issue of non-citizens voting is only an issue in local elections. Federal election laws are clear that only American citizens can vote.
And while Douglas said he thinks the reason state legislatures have started pushing for these changes is to make a political point rather than just to clarify the issue legally, he also said he doesn’t think its right to look at these initiatives as a way to close a loophole.
“I don’t consider it a loophole,” he told The Record. “That’s not the right way to think about. State constitutions by their very nature have been more explicit in the rights protections they provide to voters and have been more expansive than the U.S. Constitution.
“Changing that one word is very important. It turns the state constitution or law into being more restrictive. Regardless of this particular issue, they’re turning them into more being more restrictive in terms of protecting voters.
“In many of these places, such as Kentucky for example, we have one of these propositions on the ballot. But Kentucky state law already makes it illegal, so changing the state constitution has no legal effect.”
Douglas’ new book, “The Court v. The Voters,” delves into significant court cases regarding voting rights. While none of them address non-citizen voting issues, Douglas said the book focuses on how the U.S. Supreme Court has been harmful to the right to vote by failing to adequately protect the constitutional right to vote.
“State constitutions traditionally have been seen as more expansive on voting rights,” Douglas said. “Because the U.S. Supreme Court has been more restrictive on these rights. These states now are trying to impose restrictive rulings. I think it’s harmful because of what the U.S. Supreme Court has done with respect to the federal right to vote.
“They have deferred too readily to state legislatures. When state politicians pass rules, the court previously has asked the states, ‘Why do you need to run an election this way?’ Now, the Supreme Court doesn’t put states to the test. It just trusts the politicians, and those are the last people we should trust. They’re looking to be re-elected. The court is giving undue deference to state legislatures.”
Still, Douglas thinks non-citizens voting isn’t a major concern.
“Non-citizens are not illegally voting in elections,” he said. “Not to any measurable degree at least. And yes, it is legal in certain municipal elections, but this frenzy is simply false. It’s a false narrative. I think that’s why you see all of these ballot initiatives.”