Wisconsin voters consider constitutional amendment barring noncitizens from voting

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Yahoo! News/AP

Sat, October 19, 2024 at 12:04 AM EDT


MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Voters in swing state Wisconsin will have another choice to make after casting their ballots for president in November — whether to explicitly bar foreign nationals from voting. At the bottom of the ballot is a statewide referendum authored by Republican legislators asking for permission to amend the state constitution to clearly prohibit non-U.S. citizens from voting in any election held in the state.

Part of a GOP push across the country, the move was spurred by municipalities in a handful of states letting noncitizens vote in local elections. North Dakota, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Ohio and Louisiana have all adopted the measure in recent years and it’s on the ballot in eight others, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri.

Republicans argue they're trying to protect election integrity as immigrants pour over the southern border. Democrats and other opponents say the amendment has no practical effect — no Wisconsin municipalities allow noncitizens to vote — and is instead designed to draw conservatives to the polls and stoke anger against foreigners in the United States.

“There is no problem with noncitizens voting,” said Jeff Mandell, an attorney with Law Forward, a nonprofit organization that advocates for voter rights. “It is the very definition of a solution in search of a problem.” Voting by noncitizens is rare.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/wisconsin-voters-consider-constitutional-amendment-040403914.html

[Tetrachloride]

1. its a scam to make people bring voter ID such as passport to the polls

[ColinC]

2. I think its just their attempt to close the gap with the abortion wedge issue

[4lbs]

3. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what kind of BS this is, because I said in a previous post

that my mother was never a US citizen and she never voted. Never even got a ballot, for any election. Mid-term, annual state election, primary, or general. Nada. Nothing. Not once in over 50 years.

Only my father and I, who were/are both US citizens got ballots and voted. I voted once I turned 18, and he had been voting since the early 1970s (when he got back into the US).

So, WTF is up with this sh*t?

[groundloop]

4. They use BS like this to fire up their base.....

[malthaussen]

5. Ridiculous. Non-citizens are already prohibited from voting.

It's in the Constitution and everything. Unless the Wisconsin constitution omitted the clause for some reason. In which case, it still wouldn't happen in Federal elections.

First you imagine up a "problem." Then you pass legislation to deal with the "problem." This legitimizes it; now you can say "See, it must have been a problem, or we wouldn't have to make a law about it." Rinse and repeat, the idea is to make the marks believe anything you say.

-- Mal

[onenote]

13. Actually, non-citizen voting is not in the US Constitution.

But it is prohibited, in federal elections, by a law enacted by Congress in 1996 by an overwhelming bipartisan majority (370–37 in the House and voice vote in the Senate, and then signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 30, 1996.

Wisconsin has banned non-citizen voting in state elections since 1908; the proposed amendment would clarify that the prohibition also applies to local elections.

[joanbarnes]

6. ..and here in Missouri they attached a sentence banning ranked choice voting......

so the rubes will think they are voting against 'illegals' and also ban ranked choice to make the Repukes happy.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. They watched what happened in AK with ranked choice

and got scared!

[Botany]

8. To vote you have to be a registered voter and to be a registered voter you have to be a citizen.

Except in very few limited cases but not in Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senatorial, or
House races. This a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.

[SunSeeker]

10. Republicans love solving problems that don't exist.

They don't give a shit about real problems and pretend they don't exist, like global warming or child poverty.

[Botany]

15. Don't worry about the salt water working its way north up the Mississippi from the a Gulf of Mexico ....

…. as the sea levels rise because of the melting ice caps and glaciers or the king crab and snow crab
populations crashing because the Bering Sea between Alaska, Siberia, the Arctic Ocean, and the
North Pacific is getting too warm for their eggs or the ghost forests along eastern New Jersey of
dead or dying White Cedar trees because of the rising sea levels are flooding those wetlands with
salt water or ….????

But in Ohio the real problem is the illegal immigrants who kill people but are still getting tax payer funded
sex change operations in prison. Both Vice President Harris and Senator Brown are responsible for
all that mess. Just watch the commercials because they will tell you all about it.

Years ago as a little kid in NW PA in a middle class neighborhood in a small city our next door neighbors
was the County D.A. Pete Shafer and his brother was the Governor of the State, Ray Shafer, and he is to
this day one of the finest men I have ever met and he was a Republican too. Those days are long gone.

[Erda]

9. A few years ago

The New York City Council passed a law which allowed non-citizens to vote in local elections. It was overturned on appeal as unconstitutional.

[msfiddlestix]

11. Since when did our Federal laws change to allow non citizens to legally be able to vote? when did I miss that?

[onenote]

12. History and facts regarding non-citizen voting.

https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States

In a nutshell: the US Constitution does not expressly permit or forbid non-citizen voting in either federal or non-federal elections. A law enacted in 1996 made it unlawful for non-citizens to vote in federal elections but does not address state/local elections.

In the early 20th Century a number of states amended their constitutions to prohibit non-citizen voting in non-federal elections. Some were broad enough to apply to both statewide and local elections while others, such as Wisconsin's were more ambiguous, which is why there is a current effort to amend it to expressly apply to local elections. There are other states where the constitutions do not expressly address the issue. In such states, certain municipalities have enacted ordinance allowing non-citizen voting in their local elections. Some have been upheld under state law, while others, such as an ordinance enacted in New York City, have been struck down as violative of the relevant state constitution.

[msfiddlestix]

14. Thank you. Fascinating and interesting, but at the same time, odd and weird.

I guess it's just me, but it doesn't seem logical or right, for anyone to be able to vote in this country who isn't a citizen. Just doesn't feel right.