As divided as America may be, this election showed there’s one thing most Americans agree on: Only U.S. citizens should vote in U.S. elections.
Voters this week in eight states — Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin — overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendment ballot questions seeking to ensure noncitizens cannot vote in state and local elections. Foreign nationals are already barred from voting in federal elections.
“We’re so often told about how divided we are in the United States, but on Tuesday we had Republicans, Democrats and independents come together in overwhelming numbers declaring that only citizens would be able to vote” in elections, a jubilant Will Martin, Wisconsin state director of Americans for Citizen Voting, told The Federalist in a phone interview this week.
The Badger State’s Citizen-Only Voting Amendment (COVA) was endorsed by more than 70 percent of voters in Tuesday’s election, according to unofficial tallies. Support topped 65 percent in each of the states with COVA questions on the ballot, according to unofficial results reported by state news organizations. In Iowa, the referendum passed with 76 percent support. In South Carolina, the ballot question earned the approval of a whopping 86 percent of voters.
In Missouri, the same ballot question amending the state constitution to make clear only citizens can vote in Show Me State elections also knocked out ranked-choice voting by a two-to-one margin.
Before Election Day, COVA advocates felt confident, but Wisconsin presented the biggest challenge. Jack Tomczak, vice president for
