Legislators fight back against San Francisco’s effort to remove citizenship as requirement for voting

By Jennifer G. Hickey | July 27, 2018

Last week, San Francisco’s Department of Elections started issuing registration forms to noncitizens so they can vote in school board elections. Seeing the move as the first step on a slippery slope to allowing illegal immigrants and foreigners to vote in city or state elections, former Rep. Doug Ose (R-Calif.) submitted a ballot measure prohibiting any noncitizen from voting in the United States.

The two-sentence proposal would amend California’s election code to require that “only persons who are United States citizens may register to vote and vote in an election.”

In 2016, San Francisco voters backed a local measure allowing any parent or legal guardian of voting age to vote in school board elections. “It’s very simple,” he said. “I don’t think noncitizens should be voting,” Ose told the Los Angeles Times. He needs 365,880 valid voter signatures to get his proposal on the 2020 statewide ballot.

While Ose said his proposed initiative is not going to be part of a broader immigration or election law reform effort, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) introduced on July 25 a measure — The Eliminating Foreign Intervention in Elections Act – to punish those states or localities that allow noncitizens to vote in their elections.

“Now more than ever, it is critical that we ensure only American citizens are casting ballots in this country. My bill to defund the localities that are adopting these policies is not only commonsense, but it is critical to retaining the integrity of the American democratic process,” said the congressman.

The election lunacy is not confined to San Francisco. Earlier this month, the city of Boston held meetings to consider the idea of allowing noncitizens to vote. State Rep. Jeff Diehl, a Republican, is demanding Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) state her views on the issue.