Over 500 noncitizens are registered to vote in Washington, D.C., for the upcoming Council elections.
The District of Columbia Board of Elections reports 523 eligible noncitizen voters, with various party affiliations including Democrats, Republicans, D.C. Statehood Green Party, and unaffiliated individuals.
Specific nationalities of these noncitizen voters, such as individuals from El Salvador, Iran, and Ethiopia, are mentioned in interviews.
Shortly before the Washington, D.C., primary on June 4th, 52 House Democrats aligned with Republicans in a vote concerning a bill that aimed to revoke a 2022 Washington, D.C., law permitting noncitizens to participate in local elections.
While it remains uncertain if the Democrat-led Senate will address this legislation, the number of House Democrats supporting the bill has risen from 42 in the previous year.
In response, the House Administration Committee conducted two dedicated hearings in recent weeks to explore the implications of noncitizen voting on election integrity and the potential for foreign interference.
Chairman Bryan Steil from Wisconsin, a Republican representative, stated in his introductory remarks last week, “The D.C. Board of Elections recently confirmed that nearly 500 non-citizens have registered to vote in our nation’s capital, and that number is only growing. Early voting for D.C. primary election is happening right now. And as we sit here today, non-citizens are voting to elect members of the D.C. City Council. That’s absurd.”
“We must do two things. One, we cannot allow the D.C. citizens voting law to spread across the United States,” he said. “And two, we need to ensure non-citizens aren’t voting in federal elections across the United States. While it’s illegal today for non-citizens to vote in our federal elections, it’s also illegal to evade border patrol and unlawfully enter the country. And as we’ve seen, that hasn’t stopped anyone.”
During the early voting period for the D.C. Council primary, a total of 6,051 individuals have cast their votes in person at various polling locations within the district.
Additionally, 27,734 mail-in ballots have been received through the U.S. Postal Service, and 18,492 ballots have been submitted via drop boxes, as indicated by the most recent data on the DCBOE website.
As of April 30, there were 450,750 registered voters in the nation’s capital. Sarah Graham clarified that the numbers are updated monthly, with the latest information available being from April due to May just concluding, and the Washington, D.C., Council elections taking place on Tuesday.
Notably, Abel Amene, an Ethiopian immigrant, made history last year by becoming the first noncitizen to be elected to a public position in Washington, D.C. He ran uncontested and secured the position of Ward 4’s advisory neighborhood commissioner.
“I like to say that non-citizen voting is actually as American as apple pie. It’s been happening for centuries as part of the fabric of America,” Amene claimed in an interview with WUSA last week. “We pay taxes. I could be drafted, so I’m not really sure where the controversy is around. We can’t participate in federal elections. All we want to vote for is our ANCs and our council members.”
Shaghayegh Chris Rostampour, a noncitizen voter originally from Iran, relocated to the United States in 2018 to pursue graduate studies at Brandeis University. Following this, she moved to Washington, D.C., for employment.
Rostampour contended that undocumented immigrants who register to vote in local elections are unlikely to jeopardize their status by voting in federal elections.
“A person who is either a student and on a visa or on a work visa, or is on the path to citizenship or has applied for asylum or is undocumented, wouldn’t really risk registering it when it’s illegal to vote in federal elections and risk, everything that they’ve done, risk, all the sacrifices that they’ve made to cast a vote a ballot that would not be counted,” Rostampour said in an interview with WUSA.
During the hearing held last week, Steil put forth the argument that permitting noncitizens to participate in local elections would “continue to create challenges for states to maintain clean voter rolls.”
The committee chairman revealed that a week ago, it was uncovered that 137 noncitizens were listed on the voter registry in Ohio. Additionally, he highlighted the recent removal of 1,481 noncitizens from the voter rolls in Virginia in May 2023.
