August 12, 2022

Non-Citizens Voting in California: Judge Says No, Even in Left-Wing State

The efforts of municipal officials to allow non-citizens to vote effectively disenfranchises their own citizens and violates their respective state constitutions.

Editor’s Note: This column was coauthored by Zack Smith, Legal Fellow and Manager, Meese Center for Legal Studies.

Sometimes, common sense can prevail — even in far-out California. Last week, California Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer Jr. ruled that only U.S. citizens have the right to vote. In this, he echoed an earlier ruling by the New York Supreme Court.

This January, the New York City Council passed an ordinance that would have allowed 800,000 non-citizens to vote in its municipal elections. The ordinance clearly violated New York’s state constitution and its election laws. There’s no special carveout for NYC in these prohibitions. Fortunately for the citizens of the Big Apple, a New York court struck down this ill-advised ordinance in June.

On its face, the city ordinance would have applied only to “lawful permanent residents” and aliens authorized to work in the United States. But since NYC’s “sanctuary city” policies bar city officials from differentiating between legal and illegal aliens, this limitation would have been difficult to enforce, if not meaningless, in practice.

To demonstrate just how bizarre this ordinance was, it would have allowed foreign reporters for Communist propaganda outlets like Russia’s Pravda and Red China’s People’s Daily stationed in New York City to vote in local elections.

Yet, New York City wasn’t the first large, “progressive” municipality to pioneer noncitizen voting. That dubious distinction belongs to San Francisco.

Six years ago, that city’s voters approved an ordinance that, as the San Francisco Chronicle explains, “allows noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants and legal residents, to vote for school board candidates if they are a parent or guardian of a school-aged child and are not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction.” The ordinance took effect in 2018 and was slated to expire this year. But last November, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors extended the ordinance indefinitely.

Fortunately, Judge Ulmer recognized that letting noncitizens — even illegal aliens — vote was, itself, a lawless action. He noted that California’s “transcendent law” (i.e., the state constitution), “reserves the vote to a ‘United States citizen,’ contrary to [the] San Francisco ordinance …” and concluded that the city’s effort “to give the California Constitution a different meaning is unavailing.”

To prove the absurdity of the city’s position, the judge pointed out that by the ordinance’s illogic, children under 18 and residents of other states could vote in California elections, which the California Constitution clearly prohibits.

In addition to being unconstitutional, efforts to let non-citizens vote is bad policy. Aliens who remain legally bound by, and beholden to, the governments of their native lands should not be allowed to shape and mold our educational, law enforcement, and other policies potentially to the detriment of our country.

That is especially true in the education context, where efforts to indoctrinate young children with harmful ideologies have been well documented. Lawmakers such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have put forward common-sense proposals to encourage schools to drop the indoctrination and focus instead on educating our children. These proposals have met with massive blowback and mischaracterization from activists on the left. Yet, it is in this very sensitive area of educational policy and school board elections that San Francisco specifically proposed allowing aliens to vote and shape policy.

At least for now, the rule of law has prevailed in California and New York City. Judges there have recognized that the efforts of municipal officials to allow non-citizens to vote effectively disenfranchises their own citizens and violates their respective state constitutions.


Republished from The Heritage Foundation.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.