Ballot measures targeting noncitizen voting approved in 8 states
Voters in eight states approved Republican-backed constitutional amendments designed to make clear that only American citizens can vote in elections.
Voters approved Republican-backed constitutional amendments designed to make it clear that only American citizens can vote in elections in all eight states they appeared on the ballot, NBC News projects.
Clear majorities of voters in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin passed constitutional amendments making it explicitly illegal for noncitizens to vote in state and local elections — even though it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections in those states and at the federal level and even though it rarely happens.
GOP-controlled legislatures in those eight states — where lawmakers control the constitutional amendment process, not citizens — referred those proposed amendments to this year’s ballots.
Election experts have warned that the measures were one of several ways by which Republicans at the national and state levels have sought to drive the unsubstantiated narrative that noncitizens are voting in large numbers in ways that could affect the outcomes of elections up and down the ballot.
No state constitution allows noncitizens to vote. Outside of the eight states with the ballot measures, certain cities and municipalities in three states, as well as Washington, D.C., have allowed noncitizens to vote in some local elections.
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