Noncitizen Voting Cheapens American Citizenship
The Los Angeles City Council voted to put a measure on the November ballot granting noncitizens voting rights in local elections, which critics say undermines citizenship.
The proposal cheapens one of the most fundamental privileges of United States citizenship and threatens to dilute the voting power of lawful American citizens, according to New York Post.
Serious legal and constitutional questions surround the measure. While it is true that at certain moments in American history noncitizens were permitted to vote in some jurisdictions, that practice has been largely abandoned for the past century. Voting rights have become firmly tied to citizenship as one of its most important benefits and a key incentive for legal immigration and naturalization.
Federal law explicitly prohibits noncitizens from voting in national elections. Not a single state permits noncitizens to vote in statewide contests. However, some states allow municipalities to establish their own rules for local races.
California is among those states. Governor Gavin Newsom and Sacramento Democrats previously cracked down on Huntington Beach for requiring voter identification. Yet when a city chooses to extend voting privileges to noncitizens, the same politicians apparently have no objections.
The partisan motivation is transparent. Democrats are working to establish a precedent for noncitizen voting in municipal elections, which they can then leverage to argue for expanded voting rights in state and federal contests.
Such a strategy would allow Democrats to realize a long-standing goal of using massive influxes of foreign migrants, both legal and illegal, to overwhelm Republican voters at the ballot box and secure permanent political dominance.
Proponents offer arguments claiming noncitizens deserve voting rights because they pay taxes and utilize public services. But those factors alone do not justify granting them the most cherished right reserved for American citizens.
The timing could hardly be worse. Los Angeles just concluded one of its most contentious local elections in recent memory. Many residents have lost confidence in the voting system, even while accepting the primary results.
Nothing would do more damage to public trust in elections than handing the franchise to individuals who are not even Americans. Making matters worse, Los Angeles operates as a sanctuary city, meaning some noncitizen voters could be residing in the country illegally.
LA voters will have the final say on this deeply flawed initiative in November.
With information from New York Post
