What a difference a century can make in deciding who can vote.
Before 1925, states went back and forth between permitting noncitizens to vote and requiring citizenship as a qualification. Most states at some point allowed noncitizens to vote, a little-known fact examined by the political scientist Ron Hayduk in the Journal of International Migration and Integration.
Fast forward 100 years: Nowhere in the nation is it permissible for noncitizens to vote in federal elections after the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996.
Still, legislation to clarify that noncitizens can’t vote in state elections has been ticking up since 2021, with a growing number of states considering ways to ensure noncitizens aren’t casting ballots.
Is noncitizen voting a problem? Some states have been trying to find out. In 2024, Georgia conducted a citizenship audit of its voter rolls and found 20 noncitizens, nine of whom had voted at some point. Ohio conducted a citizenship verification audit and forwarded to the attorney general the records of 138 voters lacking evidence of citizenship. In 2022, Texas conducted a procedural audit of Harris County’s elections, which included a review of list maintenance activities. Using data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the audit found that there were potentially 269 noncitizens on the voter rolls statewide, with 47 of them in the county. The audit also confirmed that Harris County cancelled the noncitizen matches before the election and that no one on the list cast a ballot.
As for the public, a 2024 Pew Research Center study on voter confidence showed “nearly identical majorities of all voters say it is very or somewhat important to stop noncitizens from voting (90%) and to prevent people who are not qualified to vote from doing so (89%).” Pointing to the Pew data, former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams (R) says no method of preventing noncitizen voting is perfect. “It’s clear that states should use the resources available,” he says, referring to creating processes for verifying citizenship status and, if necessary, removing names from voter lists. As both a former county clerk and secretary of state, Williams provided notice and an opportunity to be heard to individuals before final removal took place. “I wanted to make sure that we removed noncitizens while protecting citizens’ right to vote,” he says.
In Congress, House Republicans reintroduced the SAVE Act, which would require all Americans to present documentary proof of citizenship for voting in federal elections. The House passed the bill, which does not address funding, in the last Congress, but it stalled in the Senate.
What States Are Doing
Whether or not Congress acts, states absolutely are in high gear. In 2024, eight states amended their constitutions away from “every citizen” can vote to “only citizens” can vote. That brings to 15 the total number of states with explicit prohibitions.
What are states’ options as they consider ways to prevent noncitizen voting?
Beyond changing constitutional language, states can also rev up their voter list maintenance processes—all of which takes staff time. All states regularly scrub their voter rolls based on eligibility requirements of age, residency and citizenship.
In the last dozen years, states have sought ways to check citizenship, too—and it’s not an easy job, in part because there is no list of U.S. citizens anywhere. The federal Department of Homeland Security maintains a database—Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement, or SAVE—of those who are in the U.S. legally but who are not citizens. States can, after requisite agreements are completed, check individual registrations against the database if they have that person’s “alien registration number.”
Another option: require new voters to show proof of citizenship when they register. For most new voters, that isn’t a problem; they show a birth certificate or passport at the bureau of motor vehicles to get a REAL ID, and that proof can be used for voter registration. (The REAL ID is not itself proof of citizenship, because they are available to noncitizens who are in the U.S. legally; it is the underlying document shown by a citizen to obtain a REAL ID that can be used for voting purposes.)
It’s a rare person who carries their birth certificate or passport when they go to the grocery store or public library, so if someone with a clipboard asks them to register, proof won’t be available. However, states can be sure the form asks for the driver’s license number, state ID number or last four digits of a Social Security number so that before those paper registrations are accepted, officials can check the numbers to verify that proof has been offered previously.
Some citizens, however, do not have a birth certificate or passport. Perhaps they were born at home decades ago and a birth certificate was never created. Or their copy was destroyed and never replaced. Over 9% of voting-age U.S. citizens say they can’t readily access documentary proof of citizenship, and just under 2% say they do not have any form of proof, according to a 2024 report, “Who Lacks ID in America Today: An Exploration of Voter ID Access, Barriers and Knowledge,” from the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.
Some Local Jurisdictions Permit Noncitizens Voting
While the trend is toward explicit language that prohibits noncitizens from voting, a countertrend is forming. Washington, D.C., and a smattering of local jurisdictions permit noncitizens to vote in local elections.
New York City was on that list, too, having enacted a measure in 2022 to allow noncitizens to vote in city elections. In February 2024, a state appeals court ruled the law unconstitutional. The law was never implemented and is on hold pending a possible appeal.
Immigrant Voting Rights, an advocacy group, lists 17 jurisdictions that allow immigrants to legally vote in local elections: 10 municipalities in Maryland, three in Vermont, two in California, New York City (though not currently in effect) and Washington, D.C. Except in the Maryland towns and San Francisco, these rules have all passed since 2020.
Requiring Proof
Arizona has required proof of citizenship since a statewide ballot measure, Proposition 200, passed in 2004. Those who can’t show proof of citizenship can’t vote in federal or state elections, with one exception. If those people used the National Mail Voter Registration Form, which does not require proof of citizenship, they can vote in federal elections but not state elections. (State law governs state elections; federal law governs federal elections.) Arizona refers to this as a “bifurcated” system, one set of ballots for those who can vote on everything and another set of ballots for “federal only” voters. The federal ballots come in nine versions, one for each congressional district.
How many people use the federal form? There are no national statistics. In Minnesota, “anecdotally, it would be a needle in a haystack,” says Paul Linnell, deputy elections director in the office of the Minnesota secretary of state. In 2023, Virginia received 1,735 federal forms out of about 300,000 new registrations, or 0.6% of the total.
Arizona has been in almost nonstop litigation since enacting documentary proof of citizenship. As other states consider going that way, they may look to Arizona for legal lessons.
Or, turn to Georgia, which passed a proof of citizenship law in 2009. In recent years, its automated voter registration and its adoption of Real ID in 2016 have proved helpful in reducing the likelihood that noncitizens could get on the rolls. “Everybody who comes to get a license or renews has to prove their citizenship for their information to get sent to the registrar,” says Blake Evans, the state’s elections director.
Georgia’s registration form also asks for the registrant’s driver’s license or state ID card number or, if those aren’t available, the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Evans says that for anyone who uses a paper form to register, their driver’s license or state ID number will be bounced against motor vehicle records to see if they have shown proof of citizenship. If they have not, the registration will be placed in “pending citizenship status” and they will be notified that they cannot vote unless they take action to prove their citizenship.
For more on state action on citizenship and voting see NCSL’s new webpage Legislative Approaches to Ensuring Only Citizens Vote.
Wendy Underhill directs NCSL’s Elections and Redistricting Program.