States look to ban noncitizen voting, adopt ranked-choice ballots

Noncitizens don’t have the right to vote anywhere in Florida right now. Voters on Tuesday will be asked to make sure that doesn’t change.

Same with Colorado and Alabama, which also have the same initiative on their own ballots, where voters will be asked to officially write into their state constitutions a rule that “only a citizen” can vote in elections there.

Backers say they’re mounting an early defense against what they expect to be a wave of attempts to grant voting privileges to noncitizens. Those on both sides of the immigration debate will be keeping an eye on the votes to see which way the winds are blowing.

“The constitutional amendment was necessitated due to a new and curious effort to give legal voting rights to noncitizens including illegal noncitizens and people here on foreign student visas,” said John Loudon, who runs Citizen Voters Inc., the force behind the amendments. “The home states of Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez are all seeing serious efforts to turn noncitizens into voters.”

Judges, election officials and legislatures have had plenty to say this year about who can vote and how they can go about it.

The public is about to get its own say.

The citizen-voting initiatives aren’t likely to have much immediate impact, according to election officials.

But another voting innovation on ballots this year could.

Alaska and Massachusetts are both facing initiatives to adopt ranked-choice balloting systems for some future elections. So are voters in Albany and Eureka in California, Bloomington and Minnetonka in Minnesota, and Boulder, Colorado.

That’s the most ever in one year, says Rob Richie, president of FairVote, which pushes for more voting choices and is a backer of ranked-choice voting.

Under ranked-choice, voters select the order in which they prefer candidates. If no candidate is the majority choice, election officials hold an instant run-off, eliminating the lowest-performing candidate. Those who listed that candidate as their top choice would then have their second choice counted. The process repeats until someone crosses the threshold.

Alaska’s initiative would create a unified ballot for state and congressional offices, with the top four vote-getters advancing to a general election, where ranked-choice balloting kicks in. Ranked choice would also be used for the presidential election.

Massachusetts’ system would be the traditional option of ranked-choice for both primaries and general elections. It would apply to state offices and congressional elections.

Ranked choice is getting its first test in a presidential general election this year in Maine, though four states used it for the Democratic presidential primary.

Mr. Richie said he could see all seven ranked-choice ballot initiatives passing, but even if there are some stumbles, the movement will grow.

Young voters are particular fans, according to polling, and some universities are adopting it for student elections.

“I think that embracing a culture of more political choice is one that I think a lot of younger people want to see. It clearly has spoken to young people that way,” he said.

Ballot initiatives are the closest the U.S. comes to a direct democracy, putting public policy questions directly to voters.

Among the issues on ballots this year are a minimum-wage increase in Florida; sex education in schools in Washington; tax hikes in Arizona, California and Illinois; gun controls in Montana; and abortion restrictions in Colorado and Louisiana.

Nebraska and Utah are also asking voters whether to officially remove provisions in their constitutions that still allow slavery as punishment for a crime.

The noncitizen voting issue has been quietly brewing for years.

Takoma Park, Maryland, eliminated U.S. citizenship as a requirement for voting in local elections decades ago — and also allows those ages 16 and 17 to vote.

San Francisco opened local school board elections to noncitizens in 2018.

It’s unclear how often noncitizens do cast ballots even where it’s legal.

Opponents of this year’s initiatives said not only is noncitizen voting not practiced legally in the states where it’s on the ballot, but they said there are unintended consequences.

In Colorado, for example, it would revoke a provision that allows 17-year-olds to vote in a primary if they would be 18 by the time of the general election.