Appeals Court to Hear Challenge to D.C. Noncitizen Voting Law
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument Friday on the constitutionality of the district’s law allowing noncitizen voting in local elections. It will also determine whether a group of Washington, D.C. voters have the right to challenge the law.
The law, Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, allows noncitizens who reside in D.C. for at least 30 days before the election and are at least 18 years old to vote for local offices and ballot initiatives. This gives noncitizens a voice in choosing the district’s mayor, school board members, attorney general, and more.
After efforts to overturn the law stalled in Congress, the legal arm of the anti-immigration advocacy organization Federation for American Immigration Reform filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of D.C. residents, arguing the law unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of U.S. citizens. One of the plaintiffs, Stacia Hall, was the Republican candidate for mayor in 2022.
The plaintiffs alleged that by allowing noncitizens to vote, the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) “unlawfully discriminates against U.S. citizens living in D.C.” in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. They also claimed the law violates the “constitutional right of citizens to govern, and be governed by, themselves.”
The DCBOE defended the law, asserting that noncitizen voting has a long history reaching back to the earliest days of the country. “Courts—including the Supreme Court—have either endorsed non-citizen voting or at least never questioned its constitutionality,” they wrote. They also argued that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing.
A district court judge dismissed the lawsuit for lack of standing because the plaintiffs failed to show how they were injured by the law.
In her opinion, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote that the plaintiffs “may object as a matter of policy to the fact that immigrants get to vote at all, but their votes will not receive less weight or be treated differently than noncitizens’ votes; they are not losing representation in any legislative body.”
The plaintiffs rejected this ruling. In particular, Hall argued she had a “concrete interest” in an accurate vote count as a candidate in a local election. The plaintiffs asked the D.C. Circuit Court to rule on the matter of standing and the law’s constitutionality in their appeal.
Oral argument will be held March 14 at 9:30 a.m.
Other than D.C., municipalities in Maryland, Vermont and California allow noncitizen voting in local elections. New York City’s noncitizen voting law was challenged before the state’s highest court last month. A decision in that case is pending even as the mayoral race heats up.