Author: GARY D. ROBERTSON
In a move that could boost voter turnout among conservatives this fall, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina introduced a proposed constitutional amendment on Wednesday to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in the state. The amendment would revise language in a law that already limits voting rights to U.S.-born or naturalized citizens age 18 or older.
The House Election Law Committee voted to put the issue on a statewide ballot this November, when presidential, gubernatorial and other state and congressional elections are held. Republicans have enough state legislators to initiate a referendum on their own if they are united on the idea.
Republican lawmakers in at least six states, including Wisconsin, have already agreed to put voting-by-foreigners measures on the ballot in this fall's elections, including one in a key presidential battleground state, and Republican supporters in other states are emphasizing a GOP campaign theme that immigrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally will have some form of voting rights in key fall elections.
It is already illegal for foreigners to vote in federal elections in the United States, and North Carolina's current state constitution limits the right to vote to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older,” among other conditions. The Republican-backed amendment would change that language to read, “only citizens of the United States who are eighteen years of age or older.”
The bill's lead sponsors, including House Speaker Tim Moore, say the proposal is intended to preserve election integrity and prevent potential foreign influence on elections.
House Rules Committee Chairman Destin Hall, another sponsor of the bill, told the committee that some have pointed out that the current constitutional language “may create a floor, not a ceiling, on voting rights,” and that “in the future, courts may decide that this is not a restriction on everyone who has the right to vote.”
Republican Rep. Destin Hall of Caldwell, 2023, relaxes at the end of a session in the Capitol building. (Photo via AP Photo/Chris Seward)
Some local governments, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, have begun allowing noncitizens to vote in local school board and city council elections. Hall cited the recent surge in illegal border crossings from Mexico in an effort to justify the provision.
He said the proposal “makes absolutely clear, beyond any reasonable doubt, that only residents can vote in state elections.”
Democrats on the committee criticized the proposal as unnecessary and a waste of time and resources. The state's voter registration application already states that voting is limited to citizens and that making false statements on the application is a misdemeanor.
“I feel like we're chasing an issue that doesn't exist,” said Guilford County Democrat Rep. Pricey Harrison. “I feel like we're creating a situation that could potentially discourage newcomers from voting.”
An audit of the 2016 election in North Carolina found that 41 legal immigrants who were not yet citizens had cast ballots out of the 4.8 million total votes cast that fall. The state currently has about 7.5 million registered voters.
In 2021, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Eastern North Carolina announced it had investigated and charged 24 people over the past 18 months with voter-related fraud, including charges that non-U.S. citizens voted illegally or registered to vote under false claims of U.S. citizenship.
Ann Webb of Common Cause North Carolina, a voting rights group, spoke against the referendum at the committee, calling it “an attempt to sow doubt about our elections, spread lies that divide us and foster an environment of bigotry and violence.”
The constitutional amendment is not subject to a veto by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, but it would need the support of 72 of the 120 House members and 30 of the 50 senators before it could go before voters. Republicans hold exactly that many members in both chambers.
For this language to be included in the Constitution, a majority of voters would need to approve it in a referendum in November.
Senator Ke'Vrick McCain, a proponent of the amendment and chairman of Americans For Citizen Voting, a national organization that seeks to push for an amendment to make voting the exclusive right of Americans, said the amendment would give “us, the people, the right to have a say in state laws, rather than leaving the states subject to interpretation.”
The bill must be approved by a House committee before it can be voted on the full House floor.
Senate President Phil Berger appears open to the idea.
“I think you could make a legal argument that that kind of thing is already prohibited,” Berger told reporters in late April, “but I don't see any harm in putting it in a constitutional amendment. Let's see if we can get enough support.”
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