What to know about the citizen-only voting amendment on North Carolina’s ballot

North Carolina is one of eight states with a citizen-only voting amendment on the ballot this election. Misinformation about the ballot measure to amend the North Carolina state constitution has erupted into a battle over semantics.

Here are the facts about the proposed amendment.

What is the citizen-only voting amendment?

Voters can vote “for” and “against” the referendum, which would change the voter eligibility language in the state constitution.

The state constitution currently says that “every” person born in the United States or naturalized can vote. The amendment, if passed, would replace that wording to say that “only” a U.S. citizen can vote.

Advocates say the ballot measure, which passed with bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled state legislature, is an effort to clarify that noncitizens can’t vote, which is already illegal and exceedingly rare in state and federal elections.

“We, and legislators who sponsor these, are getting ahead of fixing a problem that maybe has not reared its head as much in these states,” said Americans for Citizen Voting Vice President Jack Tomczak, according to a news release. “It’s not like it’s happening everywhere and it must be stopped immediately. But preemption is not a bad thing.”

In a handful of other states, municipalities have allowed noncitizen voting in local elections, but North Carolina law prohibits local governments from doing the same, The News & Observer previously reported.

On the ballot, the referendum reads:

“Constitutional amendment to provide that only a citizen of the United States who is 18 years of age and otherwise possessing the qualifications for voting shall be entitled to vote at any election in this State.”

The referendum’s wording has misled some critics. One claimed on Reddit that lawmakers slipped the phrase “and otherwise possessing the qualifications for voting” into the amendment as a ploy to support new voting restrictions in the future. Though the ballot language includes that phrase, it’s not in the amendment itself. The constitution already says that citizens who are 18 and “possessing the qualifications set out in” its voter eligibility article can vote, and that phrase would stay the same if the amendment passes.

If the majority of votes cast on the referendum are “for” the amendment, it will take effect. If the measure fails to pass, then the state constitution will remain unchanged. Either way, it would still be unlawful for a noncitizen to cast a ballot in federal and state elections.

Would it change the voting age?

Some on social media have suggested that the amendment would only allow 18-year-old citizens to vote. Irving Joyner, a professor at the NC Central University School of Law, said while a plain reading of the amendment seems to say that, it’s unlikely a court would interpret it that way.

“Normally, if it would produce absurd results, then the court would ignore that and give it some functional meaning,” Joyner said.

Could naturalized citizens get caught in the fray?

The amendment would strike a reference to naturalized citizens from the constitution’s voter eligibility section. Some opponents have said it will strip voting rights from such citizens, which is not true. U.S. citizens, regardless of how they gained citizenship, are eligible to vote.

“There’s a bright line there between a citizen and not a citizen,” Andy Jackson, director of the conservative Civitas Center for Public Integrity, said of the amendment. “It says strictly that only citizens can vote. It doesn’t matter how you become a citizen, just that you’re a citizen.”

But Joyner said the proposed change could create an avenue to challenge naturalized citizens’ right to vote in state elections.

Once the amendment is ratified, the General Assembly could enact legislation that narrows who’s eligible to vote, Joyner said. If that’s challenged in the judiciary, he said it’s possible a court would allow it because the amendment removed explicit voting protections for naturalized citizens.

“A Supreme Court bent on being mischievous could certainly rationalize that interpretation of it, and that would be tragic,” Joyner said.

The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says all people who are born in the U.S. or naturalized are citizens, so a court’s interpretation of the state amendment wouldn’t impact whether naturalized citizens can participate in federal elections, Joyner said.

Jimmy Patel-Nguyen, communications director for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, said he fears the amendment could stymie voter turnout for naturalized citizens, who make up 44% of all immigrants in North Carolina, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

“Creating this vague language on the backs of this disinformation about noncitizens voting in elections really could confuse new Americans who are just learning about participating in the electoral process,” Patel-Nguyen said. “The concern is that it could really have a chilling effect on the turnout in this election and beyond.”

In other states, efforts to remove noncitizens from voter rolls have also flagged naturalized citizens, whose citizenship status in state records may be outdated. A 2016 election audit from North Carolina’s Board of Elections found that voters who appeared to be noncitizens based on the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles data were citizens 98% of the time.

The same audit found that out of nearly 4.8 million state voters who cast ballots in the 2016 general election, 41 were noncitizens. The ineligible votes didn’t affect the election’s outcome.

Joselle Torres, communications manager at Democracy North Carolina, said she thinks the amendment falls in line with a wave of anti-immigrant hate and conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting.

Recently, North Carolina’s Board of Elections ordered the removal of Spanish-language signs at some polling places that warned against “foreigner” voting. CBS News reported that Lee County GOP Chair James Womack told volunteers to flag voter registrations with “Hispanic-sounding last names” as suspicious.

“All of this adds up to a larger scheme, a conspiracy theory, to use and scapegoat immigrant communities as a potential challenge to contest election results,” Torres said.

This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 11:00 AM.