Voting is a Sacred Right

Sunday night, New York City passed a law that will allow noncitizens (green card holders and DACA recipients) the right to vote in municipal elections. More than 800,000 noncitizens will now be eligible to vote. This is a serious mistake.

Nor is this an isolated incident. San Francisco passed a similar measure back in 2018 to allow noncitizens, including those without legal status, to vote in school board elections. Additionally, College Park, Maryland; Montpelier and Winooski, both in Vermont, have allowed noncitizens to vote in municipal elections as well.

Voting is a sacred honor, and we should vehemently protect the voting rights of legal citizens. But allowing non-citizens to vote waters down the value of citizenship. If we allow everyone to vote, we diminish the hard work of those who spent years becoming a naturalized citizen. Why should we give citizens of other countries power in setting the policies of American governments?

Free, fair, and accountable elections are vital to the survival of our democracy, and lawful American citizens should never be denied the right to vote. I believe in protecting election integrity, and laws and policies like that of New York City, threaten that objective. Simply put, only Americans should vote in American elections.