MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin voters will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to expressly prohibit noncitizens from voting in local elections.
The Republican-backed ballot question wouldn’t have much practical effect, since current law already bans noncitizen voting in state and federal elections, and no Wisconsin municipalities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, such as school and county board races.
“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,” said Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “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.”
A small handful of towns and cities in other states allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. There is no evidence that widespread, illegal noncitizen voting has occurred in recent elections.
Watch: What to know about the non-citizen voting question on the November ballot
A study of the 2016 presidential election by the Brennan Center for Justice found just 30 suspected incidents of non-citizen voting among a sample of roughly 23.5 million ballots.
Still, noncitizen voting has been a top talking point for Republicans like U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany this election cycle, and the conversation isn’t limited to Wisconsin.
“When you look at 10 million people having come into this country illegally in just the last four years, this is something that’s really ripe to be abused,” Tiffany said on Sept. 17 during a press conference on noncitizen voting hosted by the conservative MacIver Institute.
In addition to supporting the ballot question in Wisconsin, Tiffany is cosponsoring the federal SAVE Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill, but it’s dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
According to Grossi Wilde, seven states have already amended their constitutions to explicitly ban noncitizen voting in local elections. Another seven states, including Wisconsin, have 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.
One such deterrent is the state’s voter registration form, which asks whether a registrant is a U.S. citizen and warns not to complete the form if they are not. The registration form also warns that lying on it is punishable as a felony.
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