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Can Noncitizens Vote in US Elections?
United States law bans noncitizens from voting in federal elections, such as elections for president, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
Like many states, Pennsylvania also bans noncitizens from voting in elections for state offices.
A 1996 federal law permits fines and imprisonment for up to a year for noncitizens who vote in federal elections. Violators can also be deported. When people in the U.S. register to vote, they swear officially that they are U.S. citizens.
In Pennsylvania, as in other states, people must meet requirements, including citizenship, to register to vote. The state constitution says a voter must "have been a citizen of the United States at least one month." They also have to prove that they live in the state and voting district.
Ellen Lyon is a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State. Lyon said, if a noncitizen did try to vote in a Pennsylvania election, they would face punishment, including imprisonment and deportation.
The department is "not aware of any instances of noncitizens registering to vote or voting in any recent elections," Lyon said in an email to The Associated Press (AP).
Ron Hayduk is a political science professor at San Francisco State University in California who studies voting laws for noncitizens. He said that studies show noncitizens are not illegally voting in big numbers.
There have been some reports of noncitizens illegally casting ballots, Hayduk said, but such incidents are very rare.
The Brennan Center for Justice is a research group at New York University. In 2017, the group studied 42 voting areas across the United States in the 2016 election. It reported that of 23.5 million votes cast, election officials found about 30 cases of possible noncitizen voting that they referred, or reported, to law enforcement.
The state of Georgia examined its voter lists in 2022 and found fewer than 2,000 times when noncitizens tried to register to vote over the last 25 years. None of those people were registered because they did not qualify. Millions of new Georgia voters registered during that time.
In 2017, Pennsylvania said that it had to fix a mistake that permitted noncitizen immigrants to register to vote when getting a driver's license. State election officials said noncitizen immigrants might have cast 544 ballots illegally — out of more than 93 million ballots in elections dating back 18 years, going back to 2000.
Daniel Mallinson is an associate professor of public policy and administration at Penn State University in central Pennsylvania. He said claims that noncitizens are voting in large numbers have been "clearly debunked over and over and over again."
The AP says no state constitutions clearly permit noncitizens to vote. But some cities and towns in the states of California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, do permit voting by noncitizens in some local elections such as for school board and city council.
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Words in This Story
deport – v. to force (a person who is not a citizen) to leave a country
district –n. an area set up by a government for a special purpose
aware –adj. to know about something or to know that it exists
cast – v. to officially complete a ballot and offer it in an election
license –n. a document that gives the holder permission to do something like operate a vehicle
debunk – v. to show that something (such as a belief or theory) is not true; to show the falseness of (a story, idea, statement, etc.)
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