Relevance: primary · Type: event
Confidence100%
Voters in six states will decide ballot measures related to citizenship requirements for voting in 2026.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The six measures continue a multi-year trend regarding citizenship voting requirements that started in 2018.
Relevance: primary · Type: background
Confidence100%
Each of the six 2026 measures would provide that only U.S. citizens may vote in state and local elections.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Five of the 2026 measures are legislative constitutional amendments.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The measure in Alaska is a citizen-initiated state statute.
Relevance: primary · Type: background
Confidence100%
Measures in Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia would define who is eligible or ineligible to vote based on citizenship.
Relevance: primary · Type: background
Confidence100%
The constitutional amendment in Arizona would provide that “only citizens may register and vote in Arizona elections.”
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The Arizona Constitution already expressly limits voting to U.S. citizens.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The Arizona Constitution states that “no person shall be entitled to vote ... unless such person be a citizen of the United States.”
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The Arizona constitutional amendment addresses citizenship, voter identification, campaign finance, and election administration.
Relevance: supporting · Type: event
Confidence100%
Voters in Alaska will decide the first statewide ballot measure on this topic proposed as a statute rather than a constitutional amendment.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Federal law has prohibited noncitizens from voting in elections for president, the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate since 1996.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
State constitutions and state and local laws govern eligibility for elections other than federal offices.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
From 2018 through 2025, voters decided 15 constitutional amendments that added or strengthened citizenship requirements for voting.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Voters approved all 15 constitutional amendments regarding citizenship requirements between 2018 and 2025.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The average vote in favor of the 15 citizenship requirement amendments between 2018 and 2025 was 73%.
Relevance: supporting · Type: event
Confidence100%
Eight of the citizenship requirement amendments appeared on the ballot in 2024.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The measures between 2018 and 2025 generally changed language such as “every citizen may vote” to “only a citizen may vote” or added an express prohibition on noncitizen voting.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The amendments between 2018 and 2025 preempted state or local governments from later allowing noncitizens to vote.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
In most states, the amendments did not override an existing law because no locality had already authorized noncitizen voting.
Relevance: supporting · Type: event
Confidence100%
Yellow Springs voters in Ohio amended the village charter in 2020 to allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections.
Relevance: supporting · Type: action
Confidence100%
The Yellow Springs charter amendment was not implemented following a directive from Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
From 1894 through 2025, voters considered 35 statewide ballot measures related to citizenship requirements for voting and noncitizen voting.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Statewide ballot measures on citizenship voting occurred in two distinct periods separated by 91 years.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Between 1894 and 1926, voters decided 20 measures that repealed or restricted constitutional provisions allowing certain foreign-born noncitizens to vote.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Voters approved 17 of the 20 measures between 1894 and 1926, or 85%.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
No statewide ballot measures added or changed citizenship requirements for voting between 1926 and 2018.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
No statewide ballot measure proposed granting or expanding voting for noncitizens across both historical waves.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The people affected by the first wave of measures were noncitizens who had formally declared their intention to become U.S. citizens but had not completed the naturalization process.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Alan Kennedy wrote in “Voters in a Foreign Land: Alien Suffrage in the United States, 1704–1926” that noncitizen voting was widespread in early U.S. elections.
Alan Kennedy, author
Relevance: supporting · Type: quote
Confidence100%
Alan Kennedy wrote that “all thirteen original states offered noncitizens some form of suffrage by 1800.”
Alan Kennedy, author
Relevance: supporting · Type: quote
Confidence100%
Alan Kennedy wrote that by 1800, “voting by landed, white, male noncitizens was legal in many states.”
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Alan Kennedy noted that state constitutions often used terms such as inhabitant or freeman rather than citizen when describing suffrage.
Alan Kennedy, author
Relevance: supporting · Type: quote
Confidence100%
Alan Kennedy wrote that “frontier territories with statehood inclinations lured immigrants with promises of state citizenship and voting rights.”
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Jurisdictions in the first wave generally required immigrants to declare their intention to become citizens before voting.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
By 1880, more than one-third of the states allowed white male declarant noncitizens to vote.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
The practice of declarant noncitizen voting declined after 1890 and ended in the last state in 1926.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Seventeen of the 20 measures between 1894 and 1926 were approved, and three were defeated.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
In Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas, voters approved a similar proposal within several years after initially rejecting a measure to restrict noncitizen voting.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Three measures during the first wave combined the elimination of noncitizen voting with provisions granting women the right to vote.
Relevance: supporting · Type: event
Confidence100%
The final statewide authorization for noncitizen voting, in Arkansas, ended in 1926.
Leon E. Aylsworth, political scientist
Relevance: supporting · Type: quote
Confidence100%
Political scientist Leon E. Aylsworth wrote in 1931 that “for the first time in over a hundred years, a national election was held in 1928 in which no alien in any state had the right to cast a vote for a candidate for any office—national, state, or local.”
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
From 1991 through 2025, voters decided 18 local measures proposing to authorize or expand noncitizen voting in municipal, county, or school elections.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
Nine of the 18 local measures proposing to authorize or expand noncitizen voting were approved, and nine were defeated.
Relevance: supporting · Type: background
Confidence100%
As of July 8, 2026, no local noncitizen-voting measures are certified for the ballot in 2026.
forum Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to comment.