Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote Dilutes Voting Rights of Citizens

Democrats on the New York City Council, last seen expelling Thomas Jefferson from their chamber, have decided to attack another venerable pillar of American democracy: citizenship. A veto-proof majority of the Council, backed by incoming mayor Eric Adams, plans to allow over 800,000 green-card holders and non-citizen residents with work permits to vote in municipal elections. This is not a small number of additional voters: no candidate for Mayor of New York has received 800,000 votes since Rudy Giuliani in 1993.

The immediate objection to the plan, which prompted even Bill de Blasio to veto it previously, is that it violates the state constitution, which provides that “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people . . . provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election,” and that “laws shall be made for ascertaining, by proper proofs, the citizens who shall be entitled to the right of suffrage hereby established.” It further requires the secret ballot for “elections by the citizens.”

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Democrats on the New York City Council, last seen expelling Thomas Jefferson from their chamber, have decided to attack another venerable pillar of American democracy: citizenship. A veto-proof majority of the Council, backed by incoming mayor Eric Adams, plans to allow over 800,000 green-card holders and non-citizen residents with work permits to vote in municipal elections. This is not a small number of additional voters: no candidate for Mayor of New York has received 800,000 votes since Rudy Giuliani in 1993.

The immediate objection to the plan, which prompted even Bill de Blasio to veto it previously, is that it violates the state constitution, which provides that “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people . . . provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election,” and that “laws shall be made for ascertaining, by proper proofs, the citizens who shall be entitled to the right of suffrage hereby established.” It further requires the secret ballot for “elections by the citizens.”