Battleground Michigan Set to Debate Citizen-Only Voting Initiative

Lawmakers in Michigan—one of the most fiercely contested battleground states in the 2024 presidential election—will consider an amendment to the state Constitution to ensure that only citizens vote. 

Michigan state Rep. Bryan Posthumus, the No. 2 Republican in the House as floor leader, says that next month he will propose a constitutional amendment requiring prospective voters to produce proof of U.S. citizenship during voter registration and a government-issued photo ID when casting a ballot. 

Current Michigan law allows either an ID or a signed affidavit. 

Posthumus’ proposal is in response to a Chinese national who cast a ballot this year in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during early voting. 

Although the Chinese national reported himself, local officials said the vote was still counted because there is nothing to be done after a ballot goes through a tabulator. He was charged with illegally voting and perjury for falsely stating in an affidavit that he was a U.S. citizen when registering to vote.

“They can no longer say this is a right-wing conspiracy theory. A foreign national voted in Michigan,” Posthumus told The Daily Signal. “The reason we know he voted is because he stood up and told on himself. Now that people know it can be done, what’s to stop others from trying to illegally vote again?”

The Michigan proposal also comes after eight other states enacted laws or approved constitutional amendments on the November ballot to ensure that only U.S. citizens can vote. 

As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” there have been numerous adjudicated cases of foreign nationals who registered to vote and indeed voted in past elections. 

Joining Posthumus as co-sponsors of the Michigan measure are three fellow Republicans who are former election clerks—state Reps. Jay DeBoyer, Ann Bollin, and Rachelle Smit. 

This is a “commonsense, no-brainer issue,” Posthumus said, noting a Gallup poll days before the Nov. 5 election showed 83% support for requiring proof of citizenship to vote. 

“I hope Democrats will come along and make this bipartisan,” he said. 

Legislation to amend the Michigan Constitution requires bipartisan backing. Democrats control both the Michigan House and the state Senate. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also is a Democrat. 

In Michigan, a state constitutional amendment may be achieved  in two ways. One is a joint resolution adopted by two-thirds of the House and Senate (74 votes in the House, 26 in the Senate). 

The other way is for voters to approve the constitutional amendment in a ballot initiative. 

“If the legislation fails, it’s going to be on the ballot,” Posthumus said. “If it fails, I’ll lead a citizens’ initiative.”

The proposal to require voters to prove U.S. citizenship will face opposition. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson—a Democrat who is the state’s chief election official—argued that Arizona and Kansas had problems with similar state laws. 

“I’m always open to serious and well-thought-out efforts to further strengthen our secure system,” Benson said in a public statement. “But many of these proposals will prevent large numbers of eligible citizens from exercising their constitutional voting rights in the name of making it even more difficult and rare than it already is for a noncitizen to vote.”

In 2022, Michigan voters approved Proposal 2, a Benson-supported amendment to the state Constitution to expand early voting, establish a right to vote absentee, allow local governments to accept private in-kind contributions to run elections, and require the state to pay for ballot drop boxes. 

“Michigan’s voters have overwhelmingly passed constitutional amendments in recent years to ensure that eligible citizens aren’t denied their right to vote,” Benson said. “We should respect their will and focus our efforts on policies that actually improve security, such as a guaranteed source of state funding to ensure clerks have the resources they need for every election.”

If the citizenship measure is successful, Michigan would catch up with a national trend. In November, voters in two other battleground states—Wisconsin and North Carolina—approved citizen-only voting initiatives on the ballot. Also approving such measures: voters in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. 

In 2022, constitutional amendments requiring U.S. citizenship for voting were approved by voters in Louisiana and Ohio. In 2020, similar constitutional amendments were approved in Florida, Alabama, and Colorado (a blue state). In 2018, voters in North Dakota approved such an amendment. 

Census data shows that 21.7 million noncitizens lived in the United States as of 2022. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, according to the Only Citizens Vote Coalition. 

Also, every noncitizen who is legally authorized to work in the U.S. is eligible to get a Social Security number. 

No state constitution explicitly allows foreign nationals to vote. By law, the District of Columbia and local jurisdictions in California, Illinois, Maryland, and Vermont allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, but not in statewide or federal elections. 

This approach, however, requires election officials to keep separate lists of registered voters. Advocates of election integrity argue that keeping separate lists can be difficult and that noncitizen voters could slip through the cracks in state and federal elections.

In July, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would require that states obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship before a voter is allowed to register to vote. 

The bill, not yet taken up by the Senate, would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter law.”

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