Fox Cities News

A proposed amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that clarifies that only U.S citizens have the right vote has the full support of Ed Perkins, a retired businessman from Milwaukee and a leader in a grassroots movement that promotes free speech on college campuses in the state.

“It’s what our Founding Fathers intended,” Perkins told Fox Cities News. “And they devised the best system of government in the history of civilization. If you start messing with that system, you’re messing with destruction.” 

Currently, the Wisconsin Constitution guarantees that every U.S. citizen 18 and older is a qualified voter, but it does not state that only U.S. citizens are qualified to vote in state or local elections.

In April, Sen. Roger Roth (R-Appleton) and Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) circulated a sponsorship memo on a resolution to amend the constitution to clarify that a qualified voter is only a U.S. citizen for all elections and ballot measures in the state.

“Recently, some states and municipalities throughout the country have made movements to dilute the rights of U.S. citizens by extending the scope of qualified electors to non-citizens, despite having constitutional language similar to that of our state,” they wrote in the memo.

Federal law bans non-citizens from voting in presidential elections, and in those for members of Congress. However, many states have no laws or constitutional provisions banning non-citizens from voting in state and local elections. Some municipal governments in Maryland, for instance, even have approved ordinances that allow non-citizens to vote. In November 2016, San Francisco voters approved a measure that allows non-citizens to vote for members of the school board starting with the November 2022 elections.

Perkins, who help found the Free Speech For Campus advocacy group, said allowing non-citizens to vote is a risk.

“We run the risk of having foreign entities controlling the outcome,” he said.

Other states have recently moved to forbid non-citizens from voting in state and local elections. Colorado voters, for example, approved a ballot question in November that changes the wording in the state’s constitution to “only a citizen” is permitted to vote in state and local elections from “every citizen” can vote.