The D.C. law, which was approved by the D.C. City Council in October, technically went into effect on Tuesday after the Senate took no action to block it.
A Washington, D.C.-based law firm is challenging a new D.C. law that authorizes voting by non-citizens, including illegal immigrants and embassy staffers from hostile foreign nations.
The D.C. law, which was approved by the D.C. City Council in October, technically went into effect on Tuesday after the Senate took no action to block it.
The nonprofit Immigration Reform Law Institute filed a lawsuit calling for the law to be struck down because it dilutes the votes of U.S. citizens and violates their rights. The lawsuit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, is on behalf of Stacia Hall, who was the Republican candidate for D.C. mayor last year, as well as seven other D.C. citizen voters.
Christopher Hajec, the firm’s litigation director, said D.C.’s voting law, and voting laws in other states that allow noncitizens to vote, is a “direct attack on American self-government.”
“The proponents of this law claim it gives citizens of foreign nations a ‘voice’ in the affairs of the city they reside in. But they already have a voice, protected by the First Amendment. They are free to speak, write, attend council meetings, and so on,” Hajec said in a prepared statement. “This law doesn’t just give foreign citizens a voice in our country’s affairs, it gives them voting power that politicians inevitably will have to respond to. That transfer of power flies in the face of the clear right of the American people to govern themselves.”
D.C.’s Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022 allows any adult who has resided in the district for at least 30 days to vote in local elections, as long as they don’t claim voting residence in any other U.S. state or territory. The law opens the polls to D.C. residents who do not have legal authorization to live or work in the U.S., and it also includes foreign students and staffers of foreign embassies, even embassies of U.S. adversaries like China and Russia.
The law doesn’t apply to federal elections, which are only open to U.S. citizens.
The City Council approved the law in October on a 12-1 vote. It was enacted without Mayor Muriel Bowser’s signature in November. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution in early February to overturn the bill. The resolution passed 260 to 162, with 42 Democrats joining Republicans. But the Democrat-controlled Senate did not act on the law, allowing it to go into effect on Tuesday.
Council member Charles Allen, who introduced the measure, said it was “in line with our D.C. values,” and that it allows “our immigrant neighbors of all statuses to participate, contribute and care about our community in our city.” He said residents of D.C., which is a special federal district that doesn’t have voting representation in Congress, “understand disenfranchisement.”
“We know what it feels like to be taxed without representation, that people we didn’t elect make decisions that deeply affect our lives,” he said.
But opponents of the law say that the trend of allowing citizens of other countries to vote in U.S. elections is troubling. “It seems to be the complete antithesis of the founding principles of this country, that we are a sovereign nation, that we make our own decisions,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, or FAIR.
“If anybody who shows up here and is a resident and is entitled to an equal voice, then citizenship becomes absolutely meaningless,” Mehlman told National Review. “We seem to be heading down that path in any event. This is just another step.”
Marguerite Telford with the Center for Immigration Studies said that at a time of ongoing crisis at the southern border, the D.C. law sends yet another message to residents of other countries that they can come into the U.S. illegally and be welcomed. She noted that other municipalities, including New York City and communities in Vermont and Maryland, have also passed laws recently allowing non-citizens to vote, though D.C.’s law stands out because it does not require voters to be in the country legally or to have work authorization.
The New York City law was shot down in court as a violation of the state constitution, and is currently in litigation. Republicans are also challenging a local ordinance in Winooski, Vt., that allows foreign nationals to vote in school board elections.
“It’s a creeping trend,” Telford said of laws allowing non-citizens to vote. She said non-citizen voting seems to be following the pattern of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. “It started in one state and then it grew in another state, and they just keep pushing, pushing, and before you know it, then it’s accepted and then everyone does it because everyone does it.”
The next D.C. election is in 2024. Because federal and local elections in D.C. occur on the same day, the law will require the D.C. Board of Elections to print separate ballots for non-citizens so they can’t vote in federal elections. City estimates have found that implementation will cost at least $3 million, the Washington Post reported.
Estimates have found that there are anywhere from 42,000 to 50,000 non-citizens residing in D.C., roughly half of whom are likely in the country illegally. While D.C. already leans decisively to the left, progressives are betting that allowing illegal immigrants to vote will be a boon for far-left candidates. Bowser, the mayor, won her party’s nomination by less than 11,000 votes last year.
With such a short residency requirement, it could also be difficult for elections officials to verify who is allowed to vote. “I’m kind of puzzling over how they’re going to enforce that,” Telford said. “It’s going to be almost impossible to not have fraud in this.”
Details for how the law will be implemented are still being worked out, said Nick Jacobs, a D.C. Board of Elections spokesman. When asked how D.C. elections leaders intend to verify residency, he said “it might be a good question for the folks who wrote the law.”
Council member Mary Cheh, the lone vote against the bill, raised questions about the 30-day residency requirement, including questioning how much recent arrivals could know about district issues after less than a month living there, how attached they could be to the district, and how much they could have paid in taxes in that short period. She was attacked by D.C. Democratic Socialists for asking questions “rooted in xenophobia and racism.”