Source: AP News
The North Carolina constitution lays out who is eligible to vote in the state — individuals who are at least 18 years old who were born in the United States or are naturalized citizens. By law, it is illegal for non-citizens to register to vote in North Carolina, and it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.
Despite federal law already in place, Republicans across the country are spouting dangerous rhetoric around voting. In recent months, Republicans in red states, including North Carolina GOP leaders, are demonizing marginalized communities through their efforts to pass bills that ban non-citizens from casting a vote.
According to Politico, Democrats have condemned Republicans for focusing on a “nonissue,” arguing its part of a strategy with Trump to lay the groundwork for election challenges this fall.
“It appears the lesson Republicans learned from the fiasco that the former president caused in 2020 was not ‘Don’t steal an election’ — it was just ‘Start earlier,’” New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the committee’s top Democrat, told Politico. “The coup starts here. This is where it begins.”
USAToday reports that North Carolina Republicans passed a ballot initiative earlier this year that would change the wording of the state constitution, clarifying that “only a citizen of the United States” who meets all of the requirements can vote.
However, the state constitution and a 1996 U.S. law already says that.
“We have pretty clear state law right now and a pretty clear constitutional provision that non-citizens can’t vote,” Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat, told NC Newsline. “I don’t like the signal that it’s sending. I know this is an effort going on nationally. I’m very concerned about the signal this is sending to our new citizens in North Carolina.”
The GOP fixation on stoking fears around voting, echoes Trump’s unfounded claims from past elections, as well as his baseless claims about the 2024 election.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s getting louder at the moment when Trump is back on the campaign trail,” Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s voting rights program, told The Washington Post.
“It combines his election denial rhetoric with his xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric in a way that is definitely pandering to a particular set, to a certain group of supporters.”
