A proposed constitutional amendment aimed at banning non-citizens from voting in Wisconsin passed during Tuesday's election.
The ballot question was put forward by Republican lawmakers, despite the fact that current law already prevents non-citizens from voting in state or federal elections.
At the time the race was called, 71 percent of people voted to support the referendum, while 29 percent of people voted against it.
A small handful of towns and cities in other states allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. There is no evidence that widespread, illegal non-citizen voting has occurred in recent elections.
“It seems like all the provision would do is close the door on a municipality deciding that they are going to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections,” Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, told TMJ4 before the election. “And it’s also, I would say, not clear right now that a municipality could determine that it would allow noncitizens to vote under the current law.”
According to Grossi Wilde, seven states have already amended their constitutions to explicitly ban noncitizen voting in local elections. Another seven states, including Wisconsin, had ballot measures in November to do the same.
When it comes to illegal noncitizen voting, however, she says existing preventative measures appear to be sufficient.
“There are a lot of deterrents for noncitizens not to vote in Wisconsin. It would be very risky on a lot of dimensions for noncitizens to decide to vote,” Grossi Wilde said.
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