Avi McCullah was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She came to be an American citizen via a “love story that transcended borders.”
The man who would become McCullah’s stepfather proposed to her mother in the United States during a visit during the Christmas season.
“He knew we could never spend another Christmas apart again,” McCullah, the president of Americans for Citizen Voting, said at a Washington, D.C press conference this week surrounded by lawmakers and elections officials.
McCullah and her mother — who both came to the United States legally — would eventually go through the “long, tedious, grueling process of becoming American citizens.” She said it made her understand and appreciate her adopted country. All these years later, McCullah said she still cries with pride when she hears the national anthem.
“I understand the reason why so many people want to flock to this country. I absolutely respect it,” she said. “But I also respect the legal system under which this country was founded. Citizen-only voting matters so much.”
Polling shows the vast majority of Americans agree with that sentiment, particularly in the wake of an absolute invasion of the U.S. border by millions of illegal immigrants under the borderless policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Americans for Citizen Voting is working in states across the country to ensure only U.S. citizens are voting in U.S. elections. On Wednesday, the nonpartisan organization officially kicked off its campaign to secure Citizens-Only Voting Amendments (COVA) on eight state ballots this November.
‘Every’ vs. ‘Only’
As The Federalist has reported, the COVA movement comes down to two little words that make a big difference in preserving the “exclusive right of citizens” to vote: “every” and “only.”
“You don’t want to be an ‘every’ state. You want to be an ‘only’ state,” declares the website of Americans for Citizen Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization.
Most state constitutions declare that “every” U.S. citizen aged 18 and older is eligible to vote. According to Ballotpedia, 43 states do not specifically prohibit noncitizens from voting, although no state constitutions explicitly allow foreign nationals to vote in elections.
Noncitizens are allowed to vote in 17 cities in three states and the District of Columbia. Maryland boasts 11 of the cities granting voting rights to foreign nationals, with San Francisco and Oakland and three cities in Vermont doing the same.
“Three-fourths of the cities that have allowed noncitizens to vote have allowed noncitizens in the country illegally to also vote,” Jacob said.
‘More Integrity in Our Elections’
Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin all have COVA questions on November’s ballot.
In battleground Wisconsin, the Republican-controlled legislature, in accordance with state law, had to pass a measure calling for the constitutional change in two consecutive sessions. It passed on a party-line vote. Not a single Democrat voted for enshrining in the state constitution that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in Wisconsin elections. That’s been a common refrain at the local, state and national legislative level.
State Sen. Julian Bradley, a Milwaukee-area Republican, said some municipalities have taken the “every” qualifier to mean, “Well, it’s not exclusionary, so anyone can.”
“We’re going to correct that in November,” the lawmaker said. “We’re going to ensure a little more integrity in our elections.”
Election integrity is a virtue Wisconsin and other swing states have struggled with in recent years. As The Federalist first reported this week, the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the state Department of Transportation are being sued for failing to share critical records that would prevent noncitizens from voting in Wisconsin’s elections.
‘Take That to the American People’
Foreign nationals have been prohibited from voting in U.S. elections for federal officeholders since 1996. The Republican-controlled House earlier this summer passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), which requires documented proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. At present, registering to vote is an “honor system,” as SAVE Act crusader U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has said. Democrats have attempted to thwart the election integrity measure at every turn.
House Speaker Mike Johnson could include a proof of citizenship amendment in yet another continuing resolution that would stave off a government “shutdown” at the end of the month. Democrats are apoplectic, of course. The question is, are they willing to die on the noncitizen voting hill? Biden has threatened to veto the SAVE Act.
“If Democrats are unwilling to fund government into March … and their big hang-up is the fact that they want noncitizens to vote, let them take that to the American people. They want to shut government down over that, that should be on them,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told The Hill.
‘High Support’
A 2018 survey from the Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company found 71 percent of respondents opposed noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. According to the poll, 91 percent of Republicans objected, while more than half of Democrats did.
It seems not much has changed on that front since then. A national poll conducted last year for Americans for Citizen Voting by RMG Research, Inc., found 75 percent of respondents were opposed to allowing foreign nationals to vote in their local elections. Jack Tomczak, the group’s vice president for Citizen Outreach, told me that polls in ballot question states show voters opposed to noncitizen voting at a 65 percent-plus clip.
“You don’t find too many issues that are like that,” Tomczak said. “There is high support regardless of political persuasion ideology, race, gender, age. The only group opposed seems to be Democrat state legislators.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has faced his own share of struggles with election integrity, called on the Georgia General Assembly to pass a Citizens-Only Voting Amendment in 2021. He told attendees at this week’s press conference that voting is more important than being on a jury pool.
“I think that being on a jury pool is very important. You have to be an American citizen to be on a jury anywhere in America,” Raffensperger said. “Does it not make sense that a more precious right, the right to vote, should require American citizens only to be able to exercise that right to vote?”
Brazilian-born McCullah believes so.
“I advocate for citizen only voting because citizenship transformed my understanding of this incredible country we live in,” she said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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