DSA’s Push for Alien Voting Rights

Author: Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow

TOPLINE: The DSA promise to extend full voting rights to aliens would disenfranchise American citizens. The Constitution protects the life, liberty and property of our people. To extend the privileges and rights enjoyed by citizens to aliens who have not entered the American social compact or made a commitment to the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and the U.S. cultural and political heritage would effectively disenfranchise citizens, devaluing their votes and their political representation.

BACKGROUND: The DSA’s “Workers Deserve More” platform explicitly calls for full voting rights for aliens and those with criminal convictions, felons who have intentionally chosen to violate the rules we as a people have chosen for our governance to ensure a peaceful, prosperous civil society. Federal and state laws currently not only bar aliens from registering and voting in federal and state elections, but federal law also bars foreign governments and foreign nationals from participating in any way in local, state, and federal elections of candidates for office. The DSA would overturn existing laws and invite aliens to interfere in the democratic process of self-government that is a fundamental basis of our Republic.

Alien Voting Would Dilute the Franchise of American Citizens

• Citizenship is the line that separates full political membership from mere presence; erasing it means the ballot box no longer belongs uniquely to citizens.
• The DSA would allow aliens with no permanent stake in the country’s future and who do not have any of the obligations that accompany citizenship to change and alter the laws under which American citizens must live.
• It is up to the citizens of each state to decide if criminals who have committed serious crimes should be allowed to vote; under the 14th Amendment, Congress has no authority over this issue, something the DSA does not understand.

The Proposal Goes Far Beyond Voting

• DSA’s platform also calls for an open border policy, ending immigration detention and deportations, giving newly enfranchised aliens (whose first act was to illegally enter our country) the power to change our laws and our governance, opening up the nation to chaos, threats to national security, and foreign interference by those, including foreign governments, who want to harm the U.S., hurt its people, and damage its economic well-being.

BOTTOMLINE: Americans deserve a republic where every voter has made a full commitment to this country as a citizen. Extending the franchise to aliens erodes the basic American concept of a political community dedicated to the preservation of the Republic.