Even many North Carolinians who supported last week’s constitutional amendment on banning noncitizens from voting in any elections in the state may not have realized the full importance of the ballot provision that voters adopted.
North Carolina’s proposed constitutional amendment provision was succinct and didn’t really attract a lot of attention or much controversy: “Constitutional amendment to provide that only a citizen of the United States who is 18 years of age and otherwise possessing the qualifications for voting shall be entitled to vote at any election in this State.”
The amendment, placed on the November ballot by the General Assembly, was adopted with an overwhelming margin, 77.58 percent statewide. The vote was slightly less favorable in Alamance County, 75.43 percent, perhaps because the Alamance County Democratic Party’s “slate card,” handed out to voters during early voting and at the polls last Tuesday, urged a “no” vote.
Opponents of the measure, such as they were, generally emphasized that noncitizens can’t vote in presidential, U.S. Senate, or congressional races.
While it is true that noncitizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections, by a federal law passed three decades ago (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996), the federal law did not bar noncitizens from voting in state or local elections. That loophole has enabled some liberal cities across the country to enact local ordinances that allow – indeed, encourage – noncitizens to vote in local school board and/or municipal races.
Among those that have implemented such a posture are such left-leaning cities as Takoma Park, Chevy Chase, Glen Echo, and Hyattsville, Maryland (generally, speaking, suburbs of Washington, D.C.); San Francisco and Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; and Montpelier and Burlington, Vermont. New York City also passed such a provision, although it was struck down by that state’s judiciary.
North Carolina was one of eight states that adopted constitutional amendments to bar noncitizens from voting last week. The other states are Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. State majorities were high everywhere, from 62.4 percent in Kentucky, up to 85.9 percent in South Carolina.
These eight states joined seven others that previously adopted similar provisions: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio.
The 2024 provision will preemptively prohibit North Carolina’s most liberal areas (such as Orange County towns and cities such as Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough, and perhaps others like Asheville) from passing a local provision allowing noncitizens to vote in any local elections.
There’s no justification we can think of that makes allowing noncitizens to vote for any candidate or ballot issue (such as bond referendum questions) a reasonable idea.
