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Republican-backed ballot measures that make clear that only American citizens can vote passed in eight states on Tuesday.
Although it’s already illegal and rare for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, the measures were put up for a vote this year after Donald Trump and other Republicans promoted baseless claims of widespread fraud.
Republican-controlled legislatures in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin had constitutional amendments on the November ballot that explicitly make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in state and federal elections.
Voters approved the measures in all eight states, NBC News has projected. The margins of victory were large.
Voters approved the measures in all eight states, NBC News has projected. The margins of victory were large, with Oklahoma approving it by more than 80% with about 95% of votes counted.
Supporters of the measures argued such laws are necessary to protect the integrity of elections, highlighting incidents such as a 19-year-old University of Michigan student from China who was charged in late October with making a false affidavit to register to vote, which is a felony, and making an unauthorized attempt to vote. But critics have noted the steep penalty for noncitizens who do vote, which as a criminal charge would also derail any attempt at naturalization and could lead to deportation.
Noncitizen voting has been illegal in every state since 1924, and Congress passed a ban on noncitizen voting in federal elections in 1996. A handful of municipalities allow noncitizens to vote in local races for school board or city council.
Trump has long claimed without evidence that noncitizen voting is rampant, even asserting that he actually won the national popular vote in 2016 “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” But a 2017 analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice showed that election officials in 42 key areas found only about 30 potential incidents out of 23.5 million votes cast.
The issue came up again in October when the state of Virginia sought to remove 1,600 voters from the rolls that it suspected were not citizens. A federal judge put the program on hold due to a law that bars voter registration purges close to an election, but the U.S. Supreme Court removed the hold in a 6-3 decision with only a week before Election Day.