Wisconsin voters will have the opportunity on Election Day to ensure that “only” U.S. citizens can vote in Badger State elections — and an army of leftist groups is fighting tooth and nail to see the constitutional amendment ballot question fail.
Wisconsin is among eight states with Citizen-Only Voting Amendments (COVA) on Tuesday’s general election ballot. While COVA advocates sound confident that the referenda will be approved, Wisconsin left-wing activists have come out in full force to try to shut down the drive.
“We’re confident that all eight amendments are going to pass because it’s an issue people get and agree with. But the most difficult is Wisconsin because of well-funded opposition,” Jack Tomczak, vice president for Citizen Outreach for Americans for Citizen Voting, told The Federalist in an interview late last week.
‘Every’ vs. ‘Only’
Wisconsin’s ballot question asks voters the following:
Should…[the Constitution] be amended to provide that only a United States citizen age 18 or older who resides in an election district may vote in an election for national, state, or local office or on a statewide or local referendum?
Wisconsin’s constitution states, “Every U.S. citizen age 18 or older who has resided in an election district or ward for 28 consecutive days before any election where the citizen offers to vote is an eligible elector.”
Just one little word makes a very big difference, proponents of the amendment say. “Only” clearly limits voting in state elections to citizens; “every” leaves open the door for noncitizens to vote. While federal law prohibits foreign nationals from voting in federal elections, there’s nothing that says noncitizens can’t vote in local and state elections where constitutions don’t explicitly ban the expanded franchise. According to Ballotpedia, 43 states do not specifically prohibit noncitizens from voting.
Blue states have exploited the loophole. As The Federalist has reported, 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.
Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin all have COVA questions on the ballot. The backing in those states, Tomczak said, is in line with the significant support for citizen-only voting found in national polls.
But Wisconsin liberals have been activated. More than three-dozen leftist groups are lending their names and resources to an effort to defeat the referendum. The League of Women Voters, which long ago abandoned any sense of nonpartisanship to promote a litany of left-wing causes, is leading the opposition campaign in the Badger State, Tomczak said.
The League led the coalition of leftist groups in a press release decrying the citizen-only voting amendment as “an anti-voter amendment.”
It is indeed an anti-noncitizen voter amendment.
Interestingly, when the Republican-led legislature proposed the resolution to take the amendment question to voters, only one Democrat joined Republicans in supporting the measure in its first vote. Resolutions for constitutional amendment referenda must pass in two consecutive sessions of the legislature to make it on the ballot. The second time around, not a single Democrat voted for the resolution.
Why?
“This amendment is just a way for legislators to create a problem that doesn’t exist and use fear as a tactic to further divide us,” the leftist groups opposing the amendment insist.
‘There’s Been a Lot of Misinformation’
But there is a problem. Thousands of foreign nationals are showing up on voter rolls across the country amid the unprecedented millions of illegal immigrants pouring into the country thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s open border policies. The Wisconsin Elections Commission admits there are “illegal registrants” on Wisconsin voter rolls, but they do not say how many, according to a lawsuit filed last month. The same lawsuit charges that the state Department of Transportation refuses to provide the Elections Commission with critical data tools that would verify whether a registered voter is a noncitizen.
Democrat Gov. Tony Evers would have vetoed the resolutions on the citizen-only voting amendment if he had the power. Such resolutions, however, do not require the governor’s consent. Evers’ spokeswoman told the left-leaning Wisconsin Examiner that the governor doesn’t support bills that “enable politicians to interfere with elections or make it harder for eligible Wisconsinites to cast their ballot.”
Demanding that only U.S. citizens vote in Wisconsin elections won’t make it more difficult for citizens to vote, advocates of the ballot issue say.
“We’ve seen a lot of misinformation,” Tomczak said, noting that left-wing groups and their friends in corporate media have claimed that the COVA issue is being driven by former President Donald Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was rigged.
“Our amendment does not deal with federal elections,” Tomczak said. “None of the people in this organization has anything to do with the Trump campaign.”
If Evers was remotely serious about preventing noncitizens from voting in state elections, he’d tell his Department of Transportation to do all in its power to help elections officials vet the voter registration database.
But Democrats have shown that they are not interested in such basic election integrity protections. All but a few Democrats in the House voted against a bill that would have required document proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. The Democrat-controlled Senate refused to take up the measure, and President Joe Biden threatened to veto it if it got to his desk. And the Biden-Harris administration has, like Evers, refused to give state elections officials the federal tools they need to verify citizenship.
‘They are Getting it Wrong’
The groups partnering to try to kill the citizen only amendment are engaged in all manner of left-leaning causes. Many, like the League of Women Voters, despise popular voter ID laws that have strengthened election integrity.
“Changing the wording from ‘every’ citizen to ‘only’ citizens is a way for lawmakers to further restrict our freedom to vote as was the result with the Voter ID law,” said Debra Cronmiller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in the press release.
The coalition of the unwilling includes extreme leftist groups and lawfare activists, such as Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin Legislative Socialists, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC), ACLU of Wisconsin, Our Wisconsin Revolution, and Law Forward. The latter, “was founded in 2020 by lawyers who have worked for Democratic interests in Wisconsin for many years,” charity and activist tracker InfluenceWatch reports. As The Federalist has reported, the Madison-based firm bills itself as a protector of democracy, committed to “fair, transparent, and representative government; where Wisconsinites can participate in free, fair elections where their vote counts.” But the leftist law group’s record shows a commitment to Democrat Party causes, including its lead role in a phony lawsuit against Wisconsin’s alternate electors for President Donald Trump in 2020.
Corporate media have joined the crusade to attack the COVA movement as Election Day draws closer. Headlines and stories paint a picture of “anti-immigrant” legislation. It’s a false narrative, said Tomczak. The cause is about election integrity and protecting the voting rights of U.S. citizens, he said.
“Reporters don’t understand the nuances of the issue so they write what they know, and they are getting it wrong” Tomczak said.
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
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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